


Not Yet Dead

by Castiron



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Hypnotism, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Original Character(s), Reincarnation, Unrequited Love, liberties may have been taken with geography, liberties may have been taken with the BL's ability to catalogue its archives, numerous dead people, real hypnosis doesn't work that way, the archive you want is always the one that had the fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-29
Updated: 2012-08-26
Packaged: 2017-11-11 00:17:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 24
Words: 105,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/472335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Castiron/pseuds/Castiron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes has long been fascinated with (and haunted by) the tragic story of his namesake cousin. When his nightmares about it grow unbearable and he starts seeing hypnotherapist Jim Moriarty, however, Sherlock begins to wonder whether he himself is his cousin's reincarnation.  Have Sherlock and the modern John Watson known each other before this life?  Can Sherlock solve a nineteenth-century murder and prove the historic Dr. Watson innocent, and also solve the current string of oddly-posed unidentified corpses?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue, 29 January

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to thesmallhobbit for Britpicking and beta services, as well as for extreme patience. All remaining errors and Central-Upper-Left-Pondisms are my own fault. Thanks also to belovedmuerto for general encouragement and reminders to get off my rear and write.
> 
> This story diverges from BBC canon after "The Blind Banker" (or, arguably, in 1854) and from ACD canon on 4 May 1891. Further notes, sources, credits, etc. will follow the end of the story.

A jeering crowd massed at the doors outside, but within the courtroom, all was somber. 

Sherlock Holmes floated over the witness stand and watched the man who sat in the box, brown hair lightly sprinkled with grey, moustache unkempt. Throughout the trial, the man was silent, only speaking once: "I did not kill him. Ich habe ihn nicht getötet. Je ne l'ai pas tué. I did not. I could not."

He knew the man spoke the truth, but the jury did not see him, did not hear him, a ghost in the courtroom. There was no halting them, no silencing the cry of "Guilty!"

A prison cell, surprisingly bright and clean, but filled with the lingering odor of illness. Sherlock stood at the door, unseen.

The man lay on the straw pallet, pale and worn, focused on his visitor. "I did not kill him." 

The visitor knelt by the man, his rat-like face sympathetic. "I'm not the one you have to convince, Dr. Watson."

"You are, Inspector. The fate of my body is sealed; the fate of my soul I leave to God; but you are my last chance to save what remains of my reputation. Sherlock Holmes was the best and wisest man I have ever known. I would have flung myself into that chasm rather than harm a hair of his head."

The visitor sighed. "I know. But I have seen the evidence."

"Damn the evidence! Do you believe me?"

The silence lingered, broken only by the breath of the wind, the shaky gusts through the dying man's lips.

"Yes," the visitor finally lied, looking away. "Yes, I believe you."

"Thank you." The man clasped the visitor's hand. "It has been a bitter thing, to be held guilty for what one never dreamed of doing, to be judged an evildoer by those who should have had faith in me. But soon I shall see him again, and for that I would face a harsher end than the few days of pain I endure now."

 _You are wrong,_ Sherlock thought. _You will never see him again._

And he was once again at Reichenbach, hovering over the cliffs, standing at the edge. Falling water, thundering; the cry of "Holmes!" blending with the cry of the falls.

Grappling for his life, grappling with an implacable enemy.

Falling water. Falling body. Falling.

* * *

Sherlock sat up, gasping.

_Room: mine. Bed: mine. I'm alive. It was only a dream. Ambient light: time anywhere between midnight and 5:00 a.m. Music from flat to north, so after 3:30. Quiet to south, so before 4:00. Look at phone—time: 3:43. Respiration: 75, harsh and shallow. Pulse: 158. Deeper breath. Another. Pulse: 132. More breath. More. More. Pulse: 99. It was only a dream. It was only a dream. Just that bloody family story that I can't delete from my hard drive. It was only a dream._

_It was only **the** dream._

He rose from the bed; after _the_ dream, there was never any point in trying to fall back asleep. And there was still much to pack. Best to finish early, in case Lestrade called about those so-called serial suicides.

He did not need the stream of useless psychiatrists of his youth to tell him why that dream, why tonight, the night before removal day. Thousands of people in London looking for flatmates, possibly a dozen that might be willing to tolerate him, and he had to meet the one who was named John Watson.

It was merely a coincidence.

Sherlock believed in coincidence. The improbable was not the same as the impossible, and it was irrational to think that the improbable carried any special meaning. Clearly, though, part of his brain remained irrational.

The battered leather suitcase sat with the two boxes that contained his other most vital possessions, ready to be moved in the first load; Sherlock stroked its smooth surface, not needing to see the contents. Newspaper articles (mostly prints from microfilm, but one precious original of the _London Times_ with the headline "TRIAL OF HOLMES MURDERER TO BEGIN IN SWITZERLAND"), obituaries, and copies of the court records in the original French as well as in German and English translation. His meagre share of his predecessor's remaining possessions—after the second time he was evicted from a dodgy flat, Mycroft had confiscated the rest, saying that he refused to lose family artifacts to Sherlock's irresponsibility—an old magnifying glass; an improvised measuring tape; a photograph of an unidentified woman; a broken pocketwatch, face mold- and water-damaged; a set of lockpicks.

Today, they would return to their former home, his cousin's former home. Tonight, he would be living in 221B Baker Street, and if it was with a John Watson, well, he would endure Mycroft's amusement and the Yarders' teasing.

 _Struggling for his life. Falling water._

He shook off the dream. The experimental equipment alone would take another hour to pack.


	2. 24 April

Sherlock examined the body in Barts morgue, matching the messages of the corpse with the messages of his possessions. Male, early thirties, wealthy. Grooming said high-level business executive, but hands suggested scientist. Wealthy, engaged to be married, German-speaking but likely resident of the Czech Republic. "Cause of death?" 

"Myocardial infarction," Molly said.

Not necessarily a murder, then. But still, a puzzle.

John leaned over the corpse. "He seems young for that." Sympathy was in his voice; how did John find the _energy_ to care about unknown people?

"Yes," Molly agreed, glancing vaguely at John, "but his blood vessels were badly obstructed; the plaque must have been building up for some time." She added thoughtfully, "I wonder who he'll come back as."

"Oh, you believe in reincarnation?" John, ever patient even with idiots.

Sherlock ignored Molly's response—reincarnation, while ludicrous, was no more so than any other belief in life after death—and checked the fingers again. An unidentified well-to-do man, dead at least three days, well before his body had been placed on the banks of the Serpentine; why hadn't there been an outcry about his disappearance by now? Why had he been holding an obviously falsified photograph of himself and a young woman?

His left side itched. He should have known not to wear a new shirt while on a case; perhaps lack of sleep was finally affecting his brain. Nine hours over four days was less than optimal, and the planned eight last night had become three when _the_ dream woke him. John had not noticed, at least, because otherwise he would be insisting that Sherlock leave the corpse and take a nap.

A slight breeze brushed his neck as the door opened. "Molly? Oh, sorry, didn't know you had guests."

"Jim!" Molly's usual eagerness became breathlessness. Ah. New romantic interest, _finally_. "Jim, there's someone I want you to meet. Sherlock, this is Jim from IT. Jim, this is Sherlock Holmes and...and his friend."

 _John. It is not a hard name to remember._ Sherlock looked at the corpse's feet. Poor circulation, but not advanced enough to cause neuropathy....

Jim walked into Sherlock's field of vision, brushing too closely en route. "Sherlock Holmes? Molly's told me so much about you. I'm a huge fan of your work. I read Dr. Watson's blog all the time."

"I'm sorry you aren't able to find more educational reading material."

"Thanks so much," John murmured. He extended a hand to Jim. "John Watson. I'm also his assistant."

Jim shook John's hand quickly. "Well. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson." His tone and the lift in his eyebrows showed that he knew the historical parallel, but he didn't pursue the topic, instead turning his attention back to Sherlock. "Everybody says you're so good at looking at someone and telling them all about themselves. Can you do that for me?"

It was always one of those two reactions—either "freak" or "party trick". Really, he preferred "freak". "This is not a good time."

"Please? I'd love to know what you can tell about me."

Sherlock set down the magnifier and glanced over him. Hair product, finger calluses, thumb angles, lack of dress sense, spots on t-shirt, visible contents of pockets, musculature, accent. Trivial. "Fine. You are, as Molly says, in IT, a programmer rather than an administrator. You prefer Macintosh to Windows. You've worked at Barts for less than a month. You have a second income source, either family money or an additional job; the available data can be interpreted either way. Your family is from Dublin, and though you travelled with your parents, you spent a great deal of time there in your youth. But you've lived in Britain for at least fifteen years, mostly in London. You dabble in guitar. Your preferred exercise is swimming. You're largely but not entirely vegetarian. You're dating Molly in spite of the fact that you're gay."

"What?" Molly said.

He had not actually intended to say that last. Damn itching shirt. "Good day."

John gave him the "so not good I can't begin to explain it" expression—ridiculous!—and said, "Did I mention that I'm his blogger? Have you read yesterday's post on what he said about the solar system?"

Jim smiled gamely, but any further comment was bypassed by Molly. "You said 'gay'."

Sherlock sighed. Couldn't she have let that go? "Voice, underwear, product in his hair." 

"Blogger," John repeated, "assistant, and sometimes nanny."

"It's not true," Molly said. "Tell him, Jim."

"Also," Sherlock added, "the fact that he just slipped a card with his number into my coat pocket." The phone number was, admittedly, a guess, but a logical one.

Jim looked from Sherlock to Molly and back. "You're right; maybe this isn't such a good time. Molly, were you free for lunch?" At Molly's nod, he said, "Nice to meet you, Sherlock. John."

John shook his head after the door closed. "Was that absolutely necessary?"

"It was true." Sherlock turned back to the corpse.

"Not the same thing at all."

Bruise on the upper thigh, right height to be from a table or desk; stubbed toe could be from same incident. "Would it have been better to leave her in ignorance?"

"It would have been better to find a more tactful way to tell her."

"I don't do tact."

John sighed. "Yes, I'd noticed."

"Amazing. After three months of our sharing a flat, you have finally managed to make a correct deduction. In another fifteen years you might actually be useful." That was...bit not good. Sherlock considered blaming the shirt, or the lack of sleep, but finally decided once again that silence was the best choice.

"Right, then." John pulled on his coat.

"Why are you leaving?"

"Because otherwise I'm going to plan the perfect murder, and since it'll be yours, no one will solve it."

"You aren't capable of that." _You're too good_ , he refused to add.

"Oh, really? If I pick the right day, Donovan and Lestrade will swear in court that the bullet hole in the wall containing your blood and brains was actually a badly botched attempt at hanging a picture, and Anderson will write up the entrance and exit wounds as unusually bad pimples. So don't push it. I'll see you back at the flat."

 _Trial of Holmes Murderer to Begin...._ _Had_ his namesake angered his friend to the point of murder? He shunted that thought aside. It was irrelevant to this case.

But he was not going to learn anything more from the corpse, at least not with his current shortage of sleep and not without stronger stimulants than he allowed himself to use anymore. Sherlock sighed and rezipped the body bag. He would give John a few more minutes head start, some extra time to calm down, and when he himself got home he would change out of this itchy shirt and perhaps be able to make John smile again.

* * *

John strode through the corridors, anger simmering.

_Wanker. Prat. Sorry excuse for a human being._

_Still the most interesting person I've ever met._

_Damn it all._

Leaving Barts, he nearly bumped into DS Donovan coming in. "Afternoon," she said. "Freak still here? Has he found anything?"

He bristled internally at the nickname, as always. "This is Sherlock we're talking about. I'm sure he has. He just hasn't said yet."

Donovan looked at him with a knowing expression. "Drive you out, did he?" At John's noncommittal shrug, she said, "Great, one of those moods. I'll see if he'll deign to tell me what we're supposed to be looking for."

"Good luck. You might see if you can get him out of here before Molly Hooper comes back from lunch."

She rolled her eyes. "Times like these, I like to calm down by thinking of the Thames at night. Moonlight, streetlights, and the freak floating face down." She grinned. "If you decide to repeat history and put him there, try not to be too obvious about it; I'd hate to have to arrest you. See you later, I'm sure."

John would have complained, but as he'd just said about the same thing to Sherlock, he'd lost the moral high ground. "Later." And then, "Wait, what do you mean, repeating history?" But Donovan had already disappeared down the corridor.

When he got back to the flat, John lay down on the couch out of spite for a few minutes. Sherlock would be able to tell—God knew how; sometimes John could swear he'd borrowed a spy camera from Mycroft—and would complain that John had ruined the balance of the padding, but it was nice to stretch, and the git deserved the unsettlement. Fifteen minutes reading a book without Sherlock's commentary on its ending; that was what he needed right now.

Had Sherlock been rearranging the bookshelves _again_?

Christ, he had, which meant John's own books were forever lost. No, they were probably reshelved somewhere perfectly logical, if by logical you meant "numerically by final digit of Dewey number, then alphabetically by penultimate letter on page 15". Sighing, John stood and started to hunt for anything recognizably his.

 _Practical Beekeeping_ , a Nahuatl grammar, a manual for the gun currently hidden in John's wardrobe, an identification guide to jellyfish, huh, two books by someone surnamed Watson. John picked them up for closer examination. Now, that was a coincidence—another John H. Watson. He opened _A Study in Scarlet_ and began to read. _"Chapter One: Mr. Sherlock Holmes."_

What?

The paper, the binding, both looked genuine and old; it was, then, not a bizarre practical joke that Sherlock was waiting for him to discover. Probably. He read further.

_"....I was removed from my brigade and attached to the Berkshires, with whom I served at the fatal battle of Maiwand. There I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. I should have fallen into the hands of the murderous Ghazis had it not been for the devotion and courage shown by Murray, my orderly...."_

_Fuck._

John made it through the mention of Stamford the dresser, but at "You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive," he slammed the book closed. Air. Definitely time for air.

He had not been walking for more than ten minutes when a car pulled up, not-Anthea in the back seat. "Oh, no," John said aloud.

She opened the door, eyes as always on her Blackberry. "Oh, yes."

When John was escorted into a vacant Underground station that he was fairly sure he'd never seen on a map, he was unsurprised to see Mycroft Holmes sitting on a bench. "Sherlock's expecting me at home soon," John said calmly. Given that he'd left the book lying on the chair, it was probably even true; Sherlock had undoubtedly calculated how long a walk John would need to come to terms with the information.

Mycroft was equally calm. "I have already let him know you will be delayed."

The first time John had been interviewed by Mycroft Holmes had been frightening. And, yes, exhilarating— _thank you very much, second Holmes who knows me better than I know myself_. This time? He'd been living with Sherlock for three months. He'd shot a man for him, hauled him out of the Thames once, been mistaken for him and kidnapped, and been accidentally poisoned by an experiment Sherlock had mislabeled. He had new standards for danger; he occasionally thought wistfully of the long stretches of boredom military life had provided.

He surreptitiously checked his left hand. Not a twitch.

Right, then. "Still not spying for you," John said.

"How suspicious you are. And what if I asked you questions out of friendly concern?"

"Depends on the questions." John's shoulderblades prickled. He should not feel like he was walking into a Taliban stronghold wearing a pork jacket.

Mycroft smiled. "Have the nightmares been a problem?"

God, he wanted his gun. _Irrational,_ he told himself, _most dangerous man in London or no._ "No more than usual. Better than they were before I started helping your brother."

"As good as that is to know, it was not your nightmares I was concerned about. He has been having them again, hasn't he?"

"You do bug our flat, don't you?"

"It is hardly necessary. I knew when I saw that Sherlock was wearing a new shirt while on a case."

John was absolutely certain that Mycroft had a logical chain between the two facts; he was also not going to ask. "I can't say whether he has nightmares or not. I don't know his sleeping habits that well, if you can call anything that irregular a habit...." He closed his mouth belatedly. "No. Still not informing on him."

"You've told me nothing I hadn't long since known. But let me make this easier on your conscience. I have a story to tell you." Mycroft gestured to the other end of the bench. "Sit down, if you wish, or stand if you prefer to loom over me."

John sighed, considered the reach of the umbrella, and sat.

Mycroft said, "You have just been reading about Sherlock Holmes—the nineteenth century one, not the twenty-first. Had you heard of him before?"

How the hell had he known? There _must_ be a camera in the elk's head. "Not that I recall." 

"Hmm. True, you are more a reader of speculative fiction than of mysteries." Mycroft sat back. "It has always been a favourite story in our family; the original Sherlock was a distant cousin. My brother and I are named for him and his older brother. And Sherlock has always been obsessed by his namesake's story."

"Really?" Sherlock's obsessions were usually far more obvious. "Why hasn't he ever said anything about it?"

"Probably because your name is John Watson."

 _Dangerdangerdanger._ John braced himself mentally. "So I have the same name as someone who lived with him and wrote about him. What does that have to do with anything?"

"John Hamish Watson. Doctor, military, wounded in Afghanistan, returned to London after his discharge. Met Sherlock Holmes through a friend at Barts; became his flatmate, his assistant, and ultimately, his closest friend."

That was strangely warming. "I'm not sure he'd say that last, but you ought to be the better judge than I."

"I do not think that is where your histories diverge; I would point rather to the earlier Dr. Watson's marriage with Mary Morstan."

What? "You were talking about _him_? Wait, _his_ middle name was Hamish too?"

"Ask Sherlock to show you the obituary. I am certain he has a printout from the microfilm. Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson lived and worked together for several years. After his marriage, Dr. Watson removed to his own home but remained in contact with Holmes and still assisted him on some cases. He also published two books about Holmes, at least one of which you have clearly been looking at. I warn you that if you continue reading them, they are quite tedious in sections." 

"And let me guess; I'm going to read on and find Lestrade, Donovan, Anderson...."

"Only Lestrade." Mycroft ignored John's quiet curse. "And a Mrs. Hudson, if I remember correctly. At any rate, in late April of 1891 Holmes and Watson left England suddenly, and several days later, on the fourth of May, Holmes died in the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland, and Watson was arrested for Holmes' murder."

Unexpected, that sense of shock. "If that Sherlock Holmes was as bad about leaving experiments about the flat, I can't blame Watson; I'd have found him innocent due to extenuating circumstances."

Mycroft smiled slightly, but shook his head. "Watson maintained his innocence to his death, claiming that another man had pushed Holmes over the falls and had fallen in turn. But he could give no description of the man; there was no evidence of a third person at the scene, and there was only one body retrieved from Reichenbach, that of Sherlock Holmes. Watson was found guilty and was imprisoned in Switzerland. He was well treated and was even allowed to write further memoirs of Holmes' cases, though the manuscripts have been lost. In early 1894 he suddenly fell ill and died, swearing to the end that he had been poisoned by Holmes' true killers."

Now John understood what Donovan had been alluding to. "Christ. With that history, why is Sherlock willing to live in the same flat as me?"

"And 221B Baker Street at that? He would say he is too rational to let a coincidence interfere with his life. And as I said, he is obsessed with the story."

"What's so important about...oh, God, you're not telling me that they lived there _too_? You're taking the piss. Hell, you're taking the bladder and kidneys."

"Sherlock could not resist when he saw the advertisement for the flat; he almost asked me for assistance with the rent before he thought better of it."

This was beyond mad. This was all a bizarre hallucination, and he was going to section himself as soon as he got home. "But what does this have to do with nightmares?"

"The first time Sherlock heard the story of Holmes' death, he had nightmares about it, and he swore the next day that Watson had been innocent and he was going to prove it. That was when he was four. Thirty years later, he has not proven it, but he has never forgotten the story. And it would surprise me greatly if he has stopped having the nightmares, though likely he conceals them better than he did as a child."

"What am I supposed to do about it, then?"

"Simply watch. And help him if he asks."

John laughed at that. "You dragged me down here to tell me _that_? Do you really think, at this point, that you need to force me to help him when he asks for it?"

His mobile chimed before Mycroft could respond.

*WHERE ARE YOU? SH*

John glanced at Mycroft and, at his nod, texted back. *held by dangerous man.*

*Escape and come home. I am about to take a bath and am in danger of falling asleep in tub. SH*

*if not duffer, won't drown.*

*You and Mycroft just sent me the same text. Whatever you're plotting with him, stop it. SH*

John raised an eyebrow at Mycroft. "No," Mycroft said, "I am not tapping your phone. Good day, Dr. Watson. I'm sure we'll speak again soon."

* * *

Sherlock had, clearly, managed not to drown himself in the bath; when John finally returned to Baker Street, he found Sherlock changed into pyjamas and dressing gown, looking up something on John's laptop. "Why do we bother to have two computers?" John asked rhetorically.

"In case the battery dies in one. What did Mycroft want this time?"

"To give me a history lesson."

Sherlock stilled. Well, John thought, better have this out now. "So, we're Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, and his assistant Dr. John Watson, living in the same flat formerly inhabited by Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, and his assistant Dr. John Watson. Have I got all that?"

"Yes. Problem?"

"I'm not planning to throw you off a cliff, if you're concerned about that. Unless I find frog hearts in my tea mug again; then we're making a special trip to Dover."

Sherlock chuckled at that, as John had hoped, then shook his head. "So he told you the whole story. It is incredibly annoying. I am certain— _certain!_ —that Dr. Watson was innocent, but I have never been able to find substantiating evidence. It's ridiculous to be so convinced without proof."

The kettle was already full, and the water heated. John knew a Sherlock apology when he saw one. He picked up his mug, checking it for contaminants before pouring the water. "Would there _be_ any evidence left after so many years?"

"Unlikely. I am forced to remain content with supposition."

Sherlock fell silent, typing on the laptop again. John sat down at the desk with his tea and the book, turning back to where he had left off. Christ, they really did live here. Consulting detective. Violinist who actually played real tunes rather than merely mindless scraping. And God, Mycroft had been right; there was a Lestrade in this book as well.

"He was DI Lestrade's great-grandfather." Sherlock had set aside John's laptop and was now folded in the chair in one of his Thinking poses. "Still a coincidence, but possibly one that will disturb you less than an unconnected person sharing his name. And no, I have never modeled my interests on those of my cousin; we merely share many traits. Though I did intentionally name my website after his book."

Someday John would figure out how Sherlock managed to read his mind. "Does this whole situation weird you out too?"

"Not particularly. Coincidences exist. It is no surprise that I was named after a notable relation, especially since I share his birthday, and your name is not particularly rare. What did you think of the corpse?"

He welcomed the subject change. "Far too young for a heart attack victim. Looked healthy otherwise." John moved to the other chair. "Come on, then; what obvious things did I miss?"

"Besides that he was a German-speaking Czech national, research scientist turned executive in a pharmaceutical company, and being framed for cheating on his fiancée? There was little for you to miss; the useful evidence was removed or destroyed." Sherlock stared over his fingertips. "He clearly was killed elsewhere and moved to the scene; the evidence was so obvious that even Anderson saw it. He has been dead at least three days, and yet no one has reported him missing. Not his firm, so he was not travelling on business; not his family or friends, so they don't expect him home. Conclusion: he was in the UK for an extended holiday. But surely his fiancée would be troubled by the lack of communication; yet she hasn't contacted the police. Therefore, either she is somehow involved or she was a second victim."

Amazing. Again. No matter how many times John listened to Sherlock's reasoning and conclusions, he never tired of it, never stopped feeling proud to be Sherlock's audience. "Have you told...."

"Yes, John, I did give a full report to Lestrade, and I'm sure he will arrange for all the tedious immigration checks and so forth." Sherlock suddenly unfolded himself and stood. "And since there is nothing to do at this time but wait, good night."

John blinked and looked at the time. "It's not even seven."

"What would be the sense in sitting up until an arbitrary hour? There is nothing to do on the case now. Try not to stay up too late reading Dr. Watson's books."

An unfulfilled wish, as it turned out; by midnight, John was smiling and shaking his head over the end of _The Sign of Four_. Compelling stories, in spite of the digressions and inconsistencies; he'd hate to depend on Watson's testimony as a witness to anything, if the man couldn't remember where his own war wounds were....

"No!"

John was out of bed and halfway down the stairs before he consciously registered Sherlock's cry. He knocked on Sherlock's door. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, I'm fine." Sherlock sounded disgusted. "Don't hover."

"You sure? You didn't sound fine."

No response, but a minute later, Sherlock opened the door, fully dressed. "I said, don't hover. I'll be back later."

"Where are you going?"

"To see people who prefer to remain anonymous." He threw on his suit jacket and left, the doors echoing behind him.

_Well. I know when I'm not needed._

_Nightmares._

John finally fell asleep, blessedly uninterrupted by nightmares himself.


	3. 12 May - 26 May

"Looks like someone upended an archive on the pavement," Sally said.

Sherlock glanced at the strewn papers. "Hardly. This is standard A4 printer paper, a recently opened package at that. The use of a fountain pen does lend an older feel, but it will not be of interest for preservation for some years yet." _Curious_ , he thought, examining the corpse. Hair colour; tattoo on wrist; haircut; pawnbroker's ticket in pocket; lack of tan lines on fingers; muscles of right arm; misshapen left thumbnail. Messages that told him nothing of use yet; the papers were far more interesting, with their unexpected text.

After awakening from _the_ dream—this time, he had been kneeling at the cliff's edge reaching for his cousin, and had slipped and fallen in himself—it had been delightful to receive Lestrade's text about a new body found outside a large bank. The morning was only marred by the lack of John's presence. Who wanted to sit in a surgery and listen to dull symptoms when there was a crime to solve? Clearly, John.

"What have you found?" Lestrade crouched opposite him, just off the papers.

Anderson paused his off-pitch humming. "He's obviously been posed."

"Congratulations," Sherlock replied. "Next you'll be telling me he's dead." He sat back on his heels. "At least two days. Worked as a carpenter at some point, but more recently had a desk job. Hair dyed, possibly after death; texture suggests natural colour a light brown. Tattoo of fish on right wrist definitely applied after death. Placed here within the last four hours; the papers are too damp under him to have been earlier. Probably unmarried. The pawnbroker's ticket in his pocket suggests financial difficulties, but given the lack of identification, could have been planted."

"Any thoughts on cause of death?" Lestrade asked.

"No obvious signs of trauma." He ignored Anderson's mutter of _I could have told you that._ "We'll see what the autopsy tells us. Let me know when you have the results."

"I won't need to; you'll be texting me nine times an hour once it appears on my desk." Lestrade glanced aside. "Any progress on the mystery Czech?"

"Any new data?"

"No."

"Then no."

"Nothing at all?" Lestrade looked pained. "It's been nearly three weeks."

"And it will be some time longer. I'm late to an appointment."

As Sherlock walked, the lingering questions kept interrupting his observations of the changes on this street (new coffeehouse; closed dress shop; drain work in the building that held a law office and insurance company). It had been two and a half weeks since the dead man was found; Sherlock was still certain that he was indeed Czech, but so far no data on Czech nationals in the UK had matched up with the man's appearance. No police consultations, no missing person reports—and surely after this long, _someone_ would have noticed—it would be a delicious puzzle if there were more data. As matters stood, there was little more he could find out, and it might yet end up in the sector labeled "insufficient data for solution".

As Sherlock had requested, Dennis was waiting near Lancaster Gate station. "Anything?" Sherlock asked.

"Not a word. Nobody saw anything in the park that night, or if they did, nobody wants to say. Want me to keep asking?"

"Actively, no; at this point anyone willing to talk would have come forward. But if someone does speak up, you know where to find me." Sherlock handed him the remaining payment, glad to get the weight out of his pockets; Dennis was convinced that paper money contained poisonous beetles but happy to accept two-pound coins. "And if anyone has information on the corpse found outside that bank this morning, send them to me."

Dennis nodded and headed off. Sherlock was about to hail a cab when someone called out, "Sherlock?"

It was Jim from Barts. Sherlock considered ignoring him, but he did need to use Barts facilities, and a person with the harder-to-crack Barts passwords was unfortunately a person it paid to be on friendly terms with. He stopped and waited for the man to catch up ( _worked last night; hasn't been home yet, but went to gym two hours ago; eggs for breakfast, no meat, no grains_ ). "Jim." 

"I'm glad I ran into you. I wanted to thank you."

Surprisingly, Jim seemed sincere. One mystery that Sherlock would not let linger. "For what?"

"For the push I needed to come out. Molly was my final try at women."

"Hardly who I would have picked for the test."

"Now, that's my very nice ex-girlfriend you're insulting there. She's been a saint. But I didn't want to talk about her. There's something I wanted to do for you."

Sherlock sighed. Really, he should find some clothing that was less appealing to random passersby. "I'm flattered, but I'm afraid I'm not interested."

"Well, that'd be high on my list too, but I'm not coming between you and your boyfriend. Pun not intended, though if you ever wanted to...."

"Not. Interested. Good day, Jim."

"Okay, sorry, didn't mean to offend you. I wanted to offer my professional services. For free, of course."

"I do my own computer work."

"My other profession...." Jim looked hurt. "You didn't look at my card, did you?"

It was still in his coat pocket. Sherlock pulled it out. JIM MORIARTY, HYPNOTHERAPIST. _Moriarty._ The last words of a dying cabbie; the allegations from the trials of a criminal gang over a century ago. Coincidence, or connection? "Whatever would I need a hypnotherapist for?"

"Oh, I treat all sorts of psychological and neurological issues. Chronic pain. Addiction. Sleep disorders. Especially nightmares."

He contained his start, but apparently not well enough; Jim smiled. "You have trouble with nightmares, then?"

"Not at all."

Jim shook his head. "There's really nothing to be ashamed of; it's a common problem. Does the subject vary, or is there a recurring theme?"

"I'm afraid my flatmate is expecting me. Good day, Jim."

Jim's smile broadened. "Later, Sherlock. You know where to find me when you need me."

 _Never,_ Sherlock thought. _I don't need anything as unscientific as hypnosis. And I certainly don't need someone interfering with my brain. Especially not anyone named Moriarty._

_Even if I'm having **the** dream every other night._

* * *

John finally finished with his last patient and, when the door closed, sat down to see how many texts Sherlock had sent him this time. Nineteen—that was surprisingly few. He skimmed them, reading the comments on the new case with interest and shaking his head at the eight texts that were variations of "why do you think your job is more interesting than _my_ work?" *because paying bills and buying food are more interesting than starving on the streets,* he replied to the last one.

Instead of the caustic response John expected, the return text read, *As a medical professional, what's your opinion of hypnotherapy? SH*

*there's studies showing promise for chronic pain and for some addictions, but nothing's proven.* 

And then, *why?*

Sherlock didn't answer. Of course. Well, it was time to go home anyway; hopefully Sherlock wasn't hypnotising random pedestrians to believe that they were cormorants.

When John went to Sarah's office to say good-bye, the door was ajar, with laughter and a second voice coming through—Donovan's, to John's surprise. " _Three_? And she was still conscious?"

Sarah said, "Oh, she was higher than the top of the Eye. And I took her wrist to get her pulse, and suddenly she's staring at her hands and saying, 'Puppet skeletons!' And here I am trying to get her vitals while she's doing this with her hands and singing—oh, I can't even remember what it was, something out of one of the Muppet movies. Took ten minutes just to take her temperature and blood pressure, and by the time I was done I had to turn her over to the senior doctor and go hide in the bathroom until I stopped laughing."

"God, I know what that's like—you aren't supposed to laugh, and you can't _not_. We picked up one woman when I was a constable, we called her Madame Octopus.... Ah, Dr. Watson." Abruptly Donovan was all business. "The boss asked me to keep this unofficial, so I'll just say, tell the freak to give it back."

"Give what back?" Oh, Christ. "Did he take evidence from the crime scene _again_?"

She grimaced. "Just tell him, all right? Boss says if it's back in his hands by nine tomorrow morning then it stays unofficial." She turned to Sarah. "Got time for one at the pub before you go home?"

"For the tale of Madame Octopus? Absolutely. John, see you next Thursday, then?"

"Yeah, see you." No, several weeks had not changed her mind about the advisability of dating someone who came with a mad flatmate. Not that he could really blame her, given that he was already hurrying home to find out what said mad flatmate was plotting.

When he entered the flat, Sherlock was stretched out on the couch. "Nightmares," he said.

"What?"

"Really, John, can't you follow a conversation?"

"When I have no idea what question you're responding to? Afraid not." He checked the fridge. "Is the cheese edible?"

"I have done nothing to it, if that is actually your question. Avoid the bread."

"Right. Also, Donovan says to give back the evidence you stole."

"It's in the folder on the table. You can take it back in the morning."

Of course. Cheddar in hand, John opened the folder and read the paper it contained. "This sounds like part of an encyclopaedia article."

" _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ , ninth edition, published between 1875 and 1891; this is from the A's, so would have been in the 1875 volume. But why?"

"Why an encyclopaedia, or why that particular edition?"

"Both. I lack data."

John finished the cheese, debated whether he was still hungry enough to justify takeaway, and finally decided to just wait until breakfast. Then his brain finally caught up with the beginning of the conversation. "Nightmares, as in you're considering hypnotherapy to help with nightmares?"

In a smooth motion, Sherlock was off the couch and pacing. "It seems ludicrous. But dreams are ludicrous. And to have one's waking state affected by dreams is simply ridiculous." He paused. "Molly's now-ex-boyfriend offered his services."

"You outed him, and he wants to hypnotise you?" John shook his head.

"It does appear unlikely. But I am curious. There is one other oddity, though: his surname is Moriarty."

"Moriarty? You don't think...."

"I don't _know._ It's not a common name, but neither is it incredibly rare. If he is connected to the mysterious Moriarty, this would be one way to find out. But then again, if that's the case, I prefer not to have him tinkering with my brain."

"You could find a hypnotherapist who isn't named Moriarty."

"I could." Sherlock turned around and pulled a three-ring binder from a high shelf. "And then if Mr. Jim Moriarty has ulterior motives, he'll just have to find another way to get my attention. But there would be the same issue with other hypnotherapists. Any one of them could be suborned by people who would gladly see me dead or worse."

"That seems a little egotistical even for you."

"Read the discussion page on my Wikipedia entry if you don't think I have enemies." Sherlock closed the binder. "There is also the possibility that Moriarty, the criminal, is a well-chosen pseudonym. When the original Holmes was killed, he had just finished collecting evidence that broke up an enormous criminal gang. The leader of the gang was alleged to be one Professor Moriarty. If the modern Moriarty chose the name on purpose, then my would-be therapist might well be what he seems."

John shook his head. "Well, let me know if you do decide to try this hypnosis lark so I can be there."

"That's hardly necessary."

"You just finished telling me that you could be in danger from anyone. Sounds like you need someone looking on who you're reasonably sure won't rewrite your hard drive. Mind you, if hypnosis works on the nightmares, I want to see if it works on labelling the experiments too."

"A trite and repetitive complaint. But your initial point has merit." Sherlock sat at the desk with the binder and a notepad. "Your laptop is under the bathroom sink."

"Functional? Or have you been experimenting to see how humidity affects different computers?"

"Really, John, I won't need to run that experiment again until the various manufacturers bring out their next-year's models."

John refused to reply to that. He found the laptop and, on a whim, went to Wikipedia and searched for Sherlock Holmes. To his surprise, there was actually a disambiguation page:

  * Sherlock Holmes (1854-1891) (consulting detective)
  * Sherlock Holmes (1976- ) (consulting detective)



He couldn't resist saying it. "It's a sobering thought that when Sherlock Holmes was my age, he'd been dead for two years." And now he'd have that Tom Lehrer song going through his head for the rest of the night. Worth it.

"Go to bed," Sherlock called up. "I can't think around your pointless references."

* * *

Two weeks later, Sherlock was huddled on the couch at 3:16 a.m. Shivering, but that could be explained by the temperature drop; it had nothing to do with the cry of "Holmes!" and the percussion of falling water still echoing in his head. Damn it all, was he going to have to resort to pharmaceuticals just to get one uninterrupted sleep cycle?

"Sherlock? Are you all right?"

He started; he hadn't heard John come down the stairs. "Of course I'm all right. Go back to bed. Or if you're staying up anyway, make an extra cup." He stretched and evaluated John, who was shaking his head and starting the tea (eyelids high, normal rate of blinking, slight frown, breathing slightly faster than normal—woke at least half an hour ago from his own nightmare and was having trouble going back to sleep; conclusion: he heard me).

A few minutes later, John handed him the mug, sat in his own chair, and said, "Anything interesting coming in through your website?"

"No. London has become boring and tedious, bereft of intriguing crimes."

"That other corpse last week wasn't intriguing?"

"Hardly." Sherlock had been delighted when Lestrade had called him in to see another posed corpse, this one on typed letters, wearing sunglasses and a false moustache; the similarities had suggested a possible serial killer (and oh, the challenges of one of those would have been _perfect_ right now, a distraction from dullness and dreams). But once at the scene, Sherlock had been less certain. Corpse disguised and posed on papers, yes, but it was too different. Serial killers, in Sherlock's experience, liked patterns. This was not quite enough of a pattern to satisfy. Typewritten rather than handwritten text, love letters rather than encyclopaedia articles ( _but wasn't it odd? one would expect the love letters to be handwritten and the articles to be typed_ ), body disguised but not actually modified. It was just different enough to irritate rather than entice.

John sipped his tea and relaxed into the chair. "Interesting that they both appear to have died from natural causes, though."

"Only means that the toxicology lab failed to find anything. Which could be correct or completely wrong, depending on who was on staff that day." Sherlock lay back on the couch. "You should go back to bed. After forty-five minutes, you're usually able to fall back asleep as long as you actually lie down. Seventy minutes, and you've lost the window."

John's expression made Sherlock want to spill out even more deductions, just to see that look again. "Amazing. And you?"

"I'll see what I can do."

He even tried, but as he'd suspected, it was hopeless; his brain was booted up for the day. He stayed in his room, though, until after John left for the surgery.

Once the flat was empty, Sherlock moved back to the couch to ponder. Three stalled cases; it was embarrassing. He might as well apply to the Yard at this rate.

"Your notion of interior decoration is frankly appalling."

Sherlock nearly fell off the couch. Bloody Mycroft with his silent feet. "The wall had it coming. Go away."

Mycroft inspected the bullet holes and shook his head, over either their existence or their inaccuracy (John, of course, would have hit every one dead centre, but John's opinion on indoor target practice had been scathing, and he'd changed the gun's hiding place, quite well; Sherlock had actually needed seven minutes to find it again). "You're bored again, my dear boy. Clearly you have time for another case. I have a little matter involving a stolen chemical formula."

"One of your cases? When have I ever been _that_ bored?"

"Rarely, true. Which is why I'm offering a bribe as well."

"I don't want your money."

"What about your namesake's violin?"

Sherlock sat up. "I already have a replacement; I hardly need another instrument."

Why did he ever bother lying to Mycroft? And indeed, Mycroft's slight smile said that he knew exactly how much Sherlock cared about his pawn-shop acquisition when compared with his cousin's Strad.

They switched to silent debate for some minutes; Sherlock, as usual, was the one who gave up and spoke. "It's not enough. I do not want to traipse about whichever country you're taking over this week asking questions for your benefit."

Mycroft sighed. "As you wish." He leaned forwards. "Are you really quite well, Sherlock? You are not looking your best."

"I've never been better."

"If you need a recommendation for a therapist to help with the nightmares...."

"No. End of discussion. Out."

He waited until Mycroft had gathered his umbrella and left, checked the news, then dressed and went to the Yard. In Lestrade's office, Lestrade and Sally were arguing over a pile of paperwork. Sherlock ignored Sally and took the free chair. "What's this about a man beaten to death with the butt end of a rifle?"

Lestrade rolled his eyes. "How did you get in this time? Never mind. Sorry, nothing interesting about it. Though Anderson says the injury might have been inflicted after death."

"Since when do you believe anything Anderson says?"

Sally looked unimpressed. "Let's see: you've been saying that for the past three years at least, but he's still employed. The logical deduction: he's not as incompetent as you claim he is."

"And yet he continually misses the obvious."

"Which makes him different from 99% of the population how?"

"No difference at all. You're all idiots too. Lestrade, have you nothing at all for me to do?"

"Nope," Lestrade said. "A word before you go, though. Donovan, give us a moment."

When the door closed, Lestrade said, "I told you back then that if you wanted me to call you in on cases, you had to stay clean. I meant it."

"What?" Whereever had Lestrade got that idea? "I _am_ clean."

"Red-rimmed eyes. Shaky hands. Attention span of a hyperactive pigeon. Sound familiar?"

Damn, he clearly had neglected his physical needs for too long. "It's _lack of sleep._ No drugs, legal or illegal. Do you want a sample to prove it? Bring out the kit. Really, Lestrade, you should know me better than that by now!"

"I know that you're bored, and you have unsolved cases that you can't do anything with. When you show up looking like you've been comparison testing Class As, what do you expect me to think?" He held his hands up before Sherlock could speak further. "You say it's not drugs. Fine. I'll believe you; and if I'm wrong, I don't think your doctor friend will let you get away with it for long. But if it's really lack of sleep, better up the warm milk. You look like hell."

"Oh, for God's sake." There was no point in staying here.

After leaving the Yard, Sherlock walked and considered his options. _Ridiculous. But if it works...._

At last, he called the number on the business card. "Jim? Sherlock Holmes. Does your offer still stand?"


	4. 27 May

Jim's office was on the ground floor of a small house in a very nice neighborhood; as the cab pulled up, John wondered how Jim could afford rent here. Jim answered the unspoken question as he invited Sherlock and John in. "This is actually my mother's house. A mutually beneficial arrangement; at her age, she needs someone to keep a bit of an eye on her. And she would never accept financial assistance, but rent for the office is another story."

The hall was certainly posher than John would have expected. And Jim himself was much better dressed than he had been on their first meeting; Sherlock said, "Do you habitually wear a suit while seeing clients?"

"Usually. I find that most people are more comfortable with a hypnotherapist who looks like a professional."

"Whereas if you wore a suit at Barts, people would assume you were an IT administrator rather than an actual programmer. Clever." Sherlock actually did sound mildly impressed.

"People are so much more amenable when one meets their expectations, I find."

Jim led them into a large room. On first glance, it seemed more like a waiting room for an architect than a consultation room for a hypnotherapist; framed architectural drawings covered much of the wall space. John recognized the facade of the Royal Opera House and an overhead view of the Alexandra Palace. The other decor was nothing at all like the neutral and minimalist furnishing John remembered from Dr. Thompson's office. The curtains were richly coloured, patterned with intertwined red and blue lines like blood vessels on a deep green background, and the carpet had probably been woven a hundred years ago in a country John had been stationed in. The occasional tables were all covered with curvy abstract wooden sculptures and small models of famous buildings, but the elegantly carved desk was bare except for a candle in a brass holder, a glass bowl full of translucent beads, and a small black-and-white box. The chairs around the desk were upholstered in needlepoint, and the nearby couch with its lacy frame looked like it belonged in a museum rather than a consulting room. 

"Tea, either of you?" When Sherlock emphatically shook his head and John more calmly replied "no thanks", Jim said, "Then let's begin. Sherlock, why don't you sit here, in front of the desk, and John—may I call you John?—over on the couch?"

When they were seated—the couch was definitely designed for appearance rather than comfort—Jim said, "So, Sherlock, tell me about the nightmares. How long have you been having them?"

"As long as I can remember. But they've worsened in the past few months."

 _Since I met him?_ John wondered.

"Any obvious trigger?"

"Not particularly."

Jim stirred the bowl of beads with a finger. "Do they vary, or is there a common theme?"

"My nineteenth-century namesake...."

"Sherlock Holmes the detective, murdered by his friend John Watson?"

Sherlock blinked; John was also startled. "So you do know the story?" Sherlock asked. _Am I the only person who doesn't?_ John thought.

Jim chuckled. "What do you think made me so interested in you? A modern detective also named Sherlock Holmes—fascinating. Now, the common theme in the nightmares?"

Sherlock sat back. "They are always about the historic Holmes and Watson. Usually I'm watching as Holmes falls into Reichenbach; once in a while I _am_ Holmes falling. Sometimes I'm watching Watson's trial, and I'm trying to tell the judge that Watson's innocent; no one ever hears me."

John tried to wrap his brain around that idea—Sherlock being _upset_ about an innocent man's sentence. He could easily imagine Sherlock being angry about his own professional failure, but a victim's fate seemed to make no impression on him.

Jim's forehead wrinkled. "Have you considered the possibility that the coincidence of your name...."

"Hardly a coincidence that I am named after a notable relative."

Now, Jim laughed. "Oh, this is quite the family affair here. Your relative accused my grandfather's uncle of leading a criminal gang." 

"Which explains your interest in my predecessor." Sherlock was clearly interested again, a slight smile playing across his face.

John threw his hands up in disbelief. "Just so we're clear, I'm not related to anyone involved in that mess."

Jim glanced at John. "True, Watson is hardly a rare surname. But the coincidence—Sherlock, your nightmares increased after the two of you started living together, correct?"

"Indeed, and it _is_ a coincidence. I have no subconscious fears that John will murder me."

"Remember, the whole point of the subconscious is that you aren't consciously aware of it. There could be some event in your past you don't consciously remember that causes these nightmares. Though in your case...." Jim leaned forward and rested his hands on the desk. "What do you think of reincarnation?"

Sherlock's answer was immediate. "Utter bollocks."

"I used to think so myself, but.... Would you be willing to take part in an experiment?"

John shuddered. "I could live the rest of my life quite happily without hearing that sentence again."

Jim ignored him. "I'd like to try guiding you into a past life regression."

What?

"What would be the point?" Sherlock asked. "To have past life regression, there would have to exist past lives."

Jim smiled. "How do you know there don't?"

"It is completely illogical. Why would we live multiple lives and not _remember_? Even if people were more than bundles of neurons exchanging electrical signals, even if anything remained of us after our bodies rotted away, why would we start the whole sorry course over again?" Sherlock folded his hands in his lap. "Reincarnation is rubbish. I don't need to attempt a regression to prove that, just as I don't need to drink cyanide to prove that it is deadly."

"But you'd like to taste it, wouldn't you?" There was certainty in Jim's voice.

John stared at Jim. How the hell had he figured out Sherlock's personality so quickly? Or was he guessing?

Sherlock sounded calm. "What would make you think that?"

"Molly said a great deal about you. And I've learned a bit about reading people in my work. You have enough outside evidence to prove cyanide's a poison, but if you didn't, wouldn't you try it once, just to find out? Just to know the flavour, if nothing else?"

A pink pill, held in the air.... John wished he had brought his gun, then pushed that thought aside as irrational.

Jim continued, "Hypnosis, on the other hand, won't kill you. And who knows? You may find it interesting." He sat back. "I won't pressure you. I can't; hypnosis only works with the consent of the client. But I believe I can help you, and I would love to attempt the experiment. It is entirely up to you."

"At worst, you will perhaps be able to help me with my nightmares using more conventional hypnotherapy, correct?"

"At the very least, I believe I can do that for you."

Sherlock looked at John. John gestured back to him. _Your brain; your call._ That seemed to decide Sherlock; he leaned forward and said, "How do we start?"

"Let me turn down the lights." Jim clicked a remote control; the lamps dimmed. He set a candle in the middle of the desk and lit it, then sat back. "Now. Look at the candle. Breathe deeply, and concentrate on the flame; when your eyes grow heavy, let them close."

Whether Sherlock was finding Jim's tone hypnotic or not, John certainly was; it was so tempting to relax into that voice, let the words lull him. He twisted around until he found an uncomfortable position. 

After a few minutes, Jim said, "You're thinking too hard. Let go; concentrate on the flame. You have nothing to fear here; I will make sure nothing happens to you."

Sherlock glanced over at John; John lifted his chin. _I'm on duty now. Get this mission over with._

Sherlock turned back to the candle again and breathed. A slow inhale. A slower exhale. His eyes fell closed. John pushed up against his own left elbow until his shoulder ached.

"Good," Jim said. "Keep relaxing, and let yourself descend, as if you were walking down a flight of stairs. When you reach the bottom, open the door to the past."

No background music, John suddenly noticed, but no outside noises either; no sign that this house was shared with anyone else. Just the sound of Sherlock's breathing, just....

"No! God help me!"

John jumped out of his chair as Sherlock doubled over, but Jim held up a hand. "Sherlock. What do you...."

"It hurts. Christ, it hurts. No!" And Sherlock was standing, blinking, shaking. 

John automatically reached out towards him, then caught himself. He'd learned that Sherlock, while frequently happy to touch other people and things, didn't like being touched himself. Instead, John said, "Are you all right?"

"Of course I'm all right," Sherlock snapped. "It was only in my head; it wasn't real."

"Like my leg?"

Sherlock either didn't catch or simply ignored the sarcasm. "Exactly." He rubbed his forehead. "And quite odd."

"What did you see?" Jim asked.

"Nothing. Just pain. Like I'd received several blows to my torso."

"Your death. Excellent."

John couldn't hold the comment back. "What the hell do you mean, excellent?"

"It means that Sherlock's made it back that far, to that moment. Now it's simply a matter of jumping that little bit further, so we can find out what actually happened."

Sherlock was still rubbing his head—well, that made sense; a fall from a cliff into a river would presumably result in head injuries as well—but at Jim's words he sat back down. "Again, then."

Jim tilted his head. "You're sure you don't want to rest first?"

"No point. Let's finish this."

On the second try, Sherlock again cried out, but this time he remained in the chair, apparently still in trance. "I can't go past it," Sherlock whispered. "I'm back on the...call it a stairwell if you must, though the metaphor is weak."

Jim's voice remained soothing and even. "Often people find a past life too painful to experience as a participant, but if they can watch it as if they were an observer, it becomes bearable. Try that instead. Go in again, but stay out of your own head; you are an outsider, an indifferent witness."

A third cycle of relaxation, of slow breathing, of sudden tension and anguished noise. "It's too much. It hurts too much."

John unclenched his fist. "What if you try to go further back? Get some momentum and rush past it to an earlier time?" What was he saying? This was mad.

But Jim nodded. "If your past death is the cause of your present nightmares, then yes, it may be too painful for you to reach directly. Let's try that. Open the door again, and this time, go past your death; jump back farther. Much farther."

Sherlock's chest rose and fell; his shoulders stiffened, and then he was relaxed again, smiling. "I'm through."

* * *

It was very like a dream, but more vivid, less bizarre. Brilliant sunlight, cool breezes, the scent of autumn and harvest and coal fires, the crackle of dead grass and the spring of live. 

Observe. Only observe. He dutifully kept his distance from the small boy running down the path.

"Where are you?" The lilting voice was clear, and yet far distant.

He replied, "In Sussex on holiday with my parents. Outside. I'm supposed to be inside with the nurse, but I was bored. My older brother left for school yesterday; I miss him already. He told me that he'd found a snake near a stream, and I've gone looking for it. And there it is." A deep green snake, moving slowly along the bank; the boy did not yet know that it was nearing hibernation time for the snakes, but the observer could supply that knowledge.

"Good. You're still too close to the events, though. Watch the scene as if you were floating above it, as if you were seeing a film. Like you do in your dreams. Like everything you see is happening to someone else, not you."

He breathed again, and said, "I've...."

"Distance. As if it's not you."

" _He's_ caught the snake now. But it's wriggling so much that he drops it. A grass snake, but he's so pleased at his bravery that it might as well be an adder."

"Excellent. Now, let's move forward again. Let's go to the day your former self met his closest friend. What day is that?"

He left the boy in the countryside, leapt into time and landed in a high-ceilinged room filled with tables and chemical equipment. "The twenty-ninth of January, 1881. Barts. Dr. Stamford has just introduced his old acquaintance Dr. John Watson to Mr. Sherlock Holmes."

The voice remained calm and gentle. "Dr. Watson wrote about the meeting later. What can you tell me about the meeting that isn't in Watson's chronicle?"

He chuckled, watching the scene. "Watson left out the collision." Holmes ran across the room to the other two men, holding aloft a test tube that appeared to contain salt; in his enthusiasm, he skidded to a stop and bumped against Watson. 

"My dear sir, I am terribly sorry." Holmes threw out his free arm and steadied Watson. "And you so lately returned from Afghanistan; pray forgive me. I assure you I am not normally so clumsy; I was overcome by the excitement of solving this little chemical problem." 

Watson steadied himself on his cane before his leg gave out. "Quite all right, I assure you."

Another far distant voice, a warm voice giving the observer a jolt of joy. "So it _was_ his leg where he was injured."

"It was both," the observer replied. "The shoulder wound nearly killed him and led to his mustering out; the leg wound seemed less severe at first but caused longer-term problems."

Now Watson was examining the test tube. "This reagent, you say, detects blood?"

Holmes beamed. "In the smallest quantities."

"Incredible! But surely it is not merely detecting the iron in the haemoglobin? For in that case, a rusty nail should ruin the results."

Holmes' smile broadened. "I have tested it against that as well. No, this reagent reacts to blood and to nothing else. Let me show you...."

The observer laughed. "He almost pulls poor Watson off his feet again, leading him to his worktable. He is so eager to demonstrate his process that he stabs his own finger with a large needle to procure the needed blood. But he is rewarded; Watson is duly impressed."

Indeed, Watson leaned forward in fascination. "Astounding! A very delicate test indeed." 

"Yes, and think of how many crimes will be solved by means of it! Had this test existed in the past, Von Bischoff of Frankfort would not now be walking a free man, nor Samson of New Orleans dead for a murder he did not commit.... I am afraid that I bore you."

"Not at all," Watson said cheerfully. "You have performed a great service to the police!"

"I hope I shall also have performed a great service to my purse," Holmes said wryly, "as that concerns me more. But I shall consider myself compensated in full if this test proves the guilt of a criminal or saves an innocent man from the gallows."

The lilting voice spoke again. "This is excellent. Now, move forward in time. Go to the cause of your nightmares."

He lingered for a moment, watching as Stamford explained Watson's situation, as Holmes and Watson discussed their habits and finally agreed to see the rooms; it was with something very like wistfulness that he finally leapt forward.

Again he was on the familiar cliff, no longer an observer. The low sun, the smell of spring and of colder air, the thunder of the spray. The slide of his feet in the mud. The grasp of strong arms wrestling him, the struggle against a mortal enemy. For a moment only.

Pain resurged, anguish/grief/terror/fury thundering into his head and jolting him back to normal consciousness.

Sherlock blinked and raised his hands to his temples. His head pounded; he had not wanted morphine so badly in years.

_What **was** that?_

"Sherlock?" That was John, the doctor and concerned companion in unison.

_I must look like I was hit by a lorry. I **feel** like I was hit by one._

"Do you want to try again?" Jim asked. "Or have you had enough?"

Sherlock shook his head. God, that pain. "I can't anymore. Not today."

Surprisingly, Jim looked delighted. "Oh, you've done very well for a first try. That's a great deal of progress; you seem to have had a successful regression."

"Regression? Or hallucination?"

"Easy to check. Are there any details from your experience that you can verify?"

He shook his head slightly; that didn't hurt too badly. Perhaps the headache would fade soon. "After over a century? No. The furnishings would hardly be the same; the broken pane in the window would have long since been restored; nothing would remain to...."

The ceiling. There had been a gouge in the moulding, near the wall where Holmes' table sat. It might have been painted or otherwise restored, but at that height, it would hardly have been a priority.

He leapt up. "The ceiling. I have to check the ceiling." Sherlock ran out of the room and out the front door just as a cab rounded the corner. "Barts," he shouted as he flung himself into the back seat.

* * *

_Why does he **always** have to do this?_

John gave up on catching up with Sherlock when the front door slammed before he could untangle himself to get up from the couch. "I'm sorry," he said to Jim. "He gets like this when he's on the trail of a clue."

"Molly's told me about him, remember? I understand." Jim blew out the candle. "This really was excellent work for a first time. Go catch up with him. I'm sure I'll see you two again soon."

When he opened the front door and looked up and down the street, there was no sign of Sherlock. "Fuck," he muttered.

A creak behind him made him whirl. An old woman was halfway down the stairs; this must be Jim's mother. "Sorry," John said. "I didn't mean to.... I hope we didn't disturb you."

"Not at all; I'm quite used to James' visitors." She looked highly amused. "I saw from the window that your friend caught a cab. There's a rank not far away; left and left again."

"Thanks." Jim had implied that his mother was in need of care, but John couldn't see that in this woman. Perhaps she was more frail than she looked. "Well, have a good afternoon." He hurried out to find the cab.

* * *

Sherlock didn't answer his texts, but John had spent enough time in Barts to guess what rooms Sherlock would check. He finally found Sherlock in a large lecture room, standing on top of a precarious stack of chairs even taller than him. "Are you _trying_ to break your neck?"

"This gouge, here." Sherlock pointed to a large dent in the moulding. "I saw that in....I saw it."

John stared up at it. Christ. "So, it's confirmation, then?"

"No. I've been in this room before. An excruciating lecture that I had expected to be far more useful than it turned out to be."

"Which means...."

"Which means that I could have subconsciously remembered it. The entire experience may merely be the product of my questionable imagination."

He had to say it, voice the thought that he'd had several times while Sherlock related strange visions. "Were you actually seeing something, or were you putting on an act for Jim?"

Sherlock looked down at him. "Why would I want to pretend? It was an experiment, not a trap. At any rate, I was most definitely there in mind. It was very odd. Far more realistic than a dream." He looked back at the gouge. "There was one interesting detail. At the end, at Reichenbach...."

"You did see it?" Sherlock had said nothing to them, only screamed in pain again before opening his eyes; John would be quite happy if they could never repeat that experience.

"Of course. It was much like my dreams; I was on the cliff wrestling someone. But the man I was wrestling—he was thin, and taller than me. Watson was not short by any means...."

"Lucky sod."

"...but he was certainly shorter than Holmes, and the extant photographs show him to be a man of sturdy build. Whomever I was wrestling with on that cliff, it was not Dr. Watson."

 _Of course not_ , John thought, then wondered where that had come from. "Are you going to try this again, then?"

Sherlock scrambled down the chairs. "Yes. But not today. Let's go home."

Back at the flat, Sherlock grabbed John's laptop; John considered protesting but decided there was no point, and went to the kitchen instead. When he returned with tea and sandwiches, though, Sherlock pushed the laptop to him, browser open at an online photography archive. "This was taken around 1888, here in this room. I no longer have a copy myself, but you wanted to know what they looked like."

"I didn't say anything." John ignored Sherlock's disgusted exhalation—of course he hadn't needed to say anything—and looked at the picture.

It certainly looked like a nineteenth-century photograph, though he wasn't nearly enough of a clothing expert to be certain. A stocky man with a carefully-trimmed moustache sat in a high-backed chair; a cane rested against the right side. To his left stood a tall slender man, darker-haired, clean-shaven, chin on hand and elbow on the back of the chair, smirking at the photographer. That dark hair, and that nose.... John couldn't help laughing. "He looks...he looks like...."

"Yes, I know," Sherlock said, sounding irritated but resigned. "I assure you that despite my cousin's resemblance to him, I am less closely related to Anderson than I am to you."

Oh, that was an obvious opening. "Can't know that for sure," John said. "Not without a DNA analysis...oh, Christ, you didn't, did you?"

"One day he cut his thumb at a crime scene—no, John, I had nothing to do with it; I simply took advantage of the opportunity."

"All right. Wait, so when did you....never mind, stupid question, I'm sure my DNA's all over this flat."

"Hairbrush." Sherlock actually smiled at him before pulling a shoebox full of dried leaves from under a chair. "Now, be quiet; I need to concentrate on this experiment."

"Yeah, and I need to update my blog."

But he bookmarked the page and left the browser window open, occasionally returning to look at it. It made him smile, albeit wistfully, as if he were looking at a photo of his old unit. And if Jim was correct, this was really an old picture of Sherlock as he once was.

If Jim was correct. If this wasn't all a bizarre trick.


	5. 6 June - 7 June

Sherlock glared at the orange-haired corpse, at Lestrade frowning, at Anderson humming, at John. _This is an utter waste of a Sunday morning._

There _must_ be something obvious he was missing about this corpse ( _not far from the riverbank, dyed hair, fake scar on face, dressed like a homeless person, pennies sewn into the hems of his shirt and jacket; cause of death: drowning, like the corpse that had been found last Saturday under the Waterloo Bridge with five orange pips in one hand_ ) or the scene ( _no footprints, no tell-tale litter; whoever was planting these bodies was highly skilled_ ).

This made five mysterious and unidentified bodies—six, if last week's body, the one whose head had been beaten with the rifle, turned out to be a related case—and there was no clue, no thread, no hint of who might be behind this. It was unbelievably frustrating.

And there was no progress on the hypnosis front either. True, Sherlock had had two nights of long and uninterrupted sleep, but after the orange pip corpse, the nightmares had returned. He and John had seen Jim twice since then, but in neither session had Sherlock been able to enter the trance he had the first time. Two hours on Monday and three on Thursday, and all he had to show for it was a series of headaches.

Jim's patience, however, seemed boundless. The second time, after Sherlock had finally said "Enough!" and pressed his hands to his temples, Jim had said, "If this were easy, everyone would do it, and there would be no doubt that it is possible. You are trying to overcome powerful psychological barriers. And possibly powerful natural barriers as well; there may be reasons why we don't remember past lives."

"And the reason may be that I was merely hallucinating," Sherlock said.

Jim gave Sherlock a conspiratorial look, and even included John in it. "Can I tell you something I don't share with most of my clients? I believe in past lives because I once did a regression on myself, and because I was later able to independently verify some of what I learned."

"Who were you?" John asked, obviously curious.

Jim smiled, almost bashfully. "Just a distant relative, no one you'd ever have heard of. Later, though, I found some old family papers and was able to confirm things I saw. That was incredible." He leaned forward. "Trying to regress is _very_ challenging, though, even when you want to believe. And you? You don't want to believe."

Sherlock had been indignant; how dare Jim accuse him of refusing to accept unassailable facts? Emphasis, of course, on unassailable. "I have no opinion either way on it. I want to know the truth."

"You are a rationalist. Reincarnation, past life regression—they're so far outside your established ideas as to make pi times i look rational and real. But you were able to do it once. You'll do it again. Would next Monday work for you?"

"If I don't have a case."

Which he clearly would not. This was not a case. This was a waste of time.

"Anything?" Lestrade asked.

John added, "Other than the obvious fact that he drowned?"

Wait, John hadn't yet examined the corpse. "How did you know that?"

John tilted his head towards Anderson. "Background music. Phil Collins."

It made no sense to Sherlock, but as Anderson immediately turned sullen, Sherlock counted it as a victory. "Drowned, but not here. A swimming pool, most likely; there's still faint hints of chlorine odour. Someone has gone to some effort to make him appear genuinely homeless, but the condition of the fingernails and feet is suspicious, and his skin is hardly tan enough for spending so long outdoors. I'll check with some consultants to verify that, though."

Lestrade shook his head. "What consultants? Sherlock, I'm already stretching it to let you in...."

"Good day, Lestrade. Come along, John."

Sally let them through the barrier almost gleefully. When they were out of earshot, Sherlock said, "Did you get it?"

John held out his phone, picture of the corpse's face on the screen. "Good enough for your purposes?"

"Excellent. There's a coffee shop around that corner. I'll take one black, no sugar."

John rolled his eyes. "And do I meet you here, there, or somewhere in Edinburgh?"

"I'll be there in a few minutes."

Sherlock waited until John had left, then walked to the designated rendevous, John's phone in hand. The four were waiting for him: Dennis (the two-pound coins were already putting too much weight on Sherlock's pockets), Carolyn (perfectly normal in conversation, until she heard an aeroplane and ran for the nearest shelter), Ed (unbelievable tolerance for doses of heroin that would kill most people; unbelievable intolerance for absence of same), and Peter (Sherlock had yet to deduce what had caused him to end up a member of London's homeless population, which fascinated him).

Of course, none of them had ever seen the man. Not a complete confirmation, given the size of London's homeless population, but if he was a regular around this area, one of them would likely have recognized him. Sherlock handed out the notes and coins. "You know the routine. Anyone who does know him, anyone who's seen one of these bodies being placed, find me."

Perhaps tomorrow's session with Jim would be more productive.

* * *

Jim let them in to his consulting room on Monday and then excused himself. "My mother needs some help with her computer. I'll only be a few minutes; make yourself comfortable in the meantime."

Sherlock tried to imagine helping his mother with a computer problem, his mother who had on her deathbed presented him and Mycroft with laptops that could boot in Windows, OS X, and her own proprietary flavour of UNIX. He had upgraded occasional components since then but had never yet needed to fully replace it.

"Comfortable," John said after Jim left. "In here?"

Sherlock shrugged. Another night of minimal sleep; the chair would certainly keep him from dozing off, though it was surprisingly conducive to the hypnotic trance. "It's a tolerable space." He picked up the black and white box from Jim's desk. Fascinating little thing; he slid the lid back. Ouch!

John was immediately by him. "What happened?"

The door opened. "Sorry to keep you waiting...damn! I should've put that away." Jim hurried over and grabbed Sherlock's hand ( _firm grip, at least; not the light touch that would irritate more than the cut_ ), examining the bleeding finger. "I'm terribly sorry. That box has a trick spring in it; nasty little device." He released Sherlock's hand before Sherlock had to ask him to. "The bathroom's to the right of the stairs if you'd like to clean that off; there's sticking plasters in the bottom shelf of the cabinet."

John leaned over and gave the nick the doctor's once-over. "Doesn't look too deep, but yeah, God knows where that's been. Especially if other people stabbed themselves on it."

"Let's see—me, my mother, my father, six of my school friends, at least eleven of my parents' friends that I know of...."

"Fine," Sherlock said, rising. "I'll be back."

After a liberal application of liquid handwash and a few minutes of scrubbing, he returned. The box was gone, and Jim apologized again. 

Then his manner abruptly shifted into the therapist's mode. "I've been thinking about the failure of your past attempts, as you're clearly a person of strong will and focus. I suspect I know the problem: you are trying too hard to see your previous death."

What rot. "If past lives were real and if I had experienced these things, then seeing what actually happened to my cousin at Reichenbach would be the whole point of these efforts."

"But clearly it's difficult for you. It's not uncommon for people to find their past death so disturbing that they don't let themselves see it."

"Ridiculous. I have no fear of death, even my own." 

John shuffled in his chair. "That's an understatement."

He remembered John tied to a chair in a tunnel and repressed a shudder. Perhaps there was one death he did fear...irrelevant, here and now.

Jim picked through the beads in the bowl on his desk, forehead furrowed. "Still, why don't we try something different? Instead of your death, instead of the event that causes your nightmares, let's see if you can regress to a happy time."

Sherlock sighed. "If we must. It hardly solves the mystery."

"It might make it easier for you to enter the regression trance, though. And once you can reliably enter that state, then we can work on the more difficult times."

Jim turned off the light, and Sherlock inhaled and focused on the candle. This part was easy, the slow fading and descent, the relaxation. It was passing the barrier at the bottom that was....

The gentle lilting voice filled his ears. "When you pass the door, don't try to see your death. Jump over that, further back, to one of the happiest days of your past life. And remember that you are only an observer. You are not experiencing this; you are not seeing it through your own eyes, through the eyes of the person you were. You are only observing. You are floating above the scene; you are watching a recording. This is not happening to you, Sherlock Holmes of the twenty-first century; it is happening to a person in the past, and you are only an observer, not a participant. Now, jump."

And he was hurtling through the darkness, past a blur of pain, to a room he knew well in spite of the changed furnishings, the different wallpaper and curtains. To the sitting room of 221B, to two men sitting by the fire, one tall and dark-haired, one brown-haired and stocky.

He was only an observer. So much easier this way. He knew how to observe, how to describe what he saw to his listening audience. The burns on the chair, where Watson had once dropped his pipe—he had been lucky that it was the chair and not his leg that was scarred. The bullet holes in the wall spelling VR, where Holmes had performed target practice in a fit of boredom. The stains in the carpet—and on the floorboards beneath—where one of Holmes' chemical experiments had left its traces. ( _I've seen those_ , Sherlock remembered, before his own thoughts faded away, leaving only the flat.)

Holmes and Watson, tonight, sat in their chairs by the fireplace, smoking their pipes, talking of anything and nothing. Holmes' latest researches; Watson's recent patients; the critical reception of Verdi's new opera _Otello_ and the possibility of a London performance; the condition of the roads; the history of Renaissance architecture.

There appeared to be nothing whatsoever special about this evening. No case would interrupt them; no telegram would summon Holmes to Scotland Yard or Watson to a patient. They would merely share each other's company until the hour was late and they retired to their rooms. It was an inexpressibly, unbearably perfect night, all the more so for its commonality, its apparent mundanity.

"But it must be important," said the soothing voice. "Why did you go to this night?"

"Because it is the last one," the observer replied. "Tomorrow Miss Mary Morstan will consult Sherlock Holmes, and Watson's heart will be lost to her. Tonight, though, there is only this perfect camaraderie, this settled peace, this utter contentment." The emotions were seeping in despite his distance. "I thought it would last...not forever, of course, for nothing in this world is so blessed or cursed, but certainly until one or the other of us died. I did not know...I did not know...." He gasped as the pain struck.

"Sherlock. Step away from it."

He could not. He could not step back and watch this moment as an indifferent observer, not when it had been forever lost, squandered in ignorance. Holmes laughed at one of Watson's comments, refilled their glasses of brandy, and began to tell a story about a case centering around an aluminum crutch. _I am sorry,_ the observer thought. _I am so sorry. I did not know that this was the beginning of the end._

The other voice, the warm one that he wrapped around himself like a scarf. "Can you snap your fingers and wake him up?"

The first voice, the lilt. "It doesn't actually work that way until we set a waking trigger. But yes, that's a popular one. Four snaps, let's say—harder to do by accident."

"Better than four knocks, right? Yeah, _you_ know what I'm talking about; _he_ wouldn't know David Tennant from Bernard Cribbins. Sherlock, do you hear us? Wake up when you hear four snaps, will you? Please?"

"Sherlock, it's time to come back. When I snap my fingers four times, you'll wake up, and you will remember the scene as an observer only. Now. Come back."

Four snaps. 

Sherlock opened his eyes, blinked away the tears—allergens, it must be—and looked at Jim's concerned face, at John's stoic one. "Well?"

"Well." Jim now smiled. "You see? When we chose a better entry point, you were able to regress. Do you want to try again today? Or would you rather wait? I'm afraid between Barts and some other projects I'm not available tomorrow, but Wednesday, perhaps?"

He might be remembering the scene as an observer, but he also remembered his reactions. No more, not today. "Yes, Wednesday."

In the cab, John finally spoke. "What the hell happened to you? You didn't say anything for—well, it was only three or four minutes, but it felt like forever."

Even to John, he was not about to say that he couldn't bear to stop watching them. "I was only observing some interesting points about the room. Did you know that you can still feel the VR in the wall where Holmes shot it?"

John giggled. "God, I can already tell this whole business is not going to end well." His expression suddenly grew grim. "What's the best place in London to get something analysed for traces of contaminants or poisons?"

"Our flat. Well, Barts if it calls for a spectrometer or an electron microscope. But I'm the best person for the job." Unless one wanted to call in Mycroft's people, which one never wanted.

"I was afraid you'd say that." He sighed, reached into his pocket, and pulled out the black and white box.

Sherlock felt a strange twist in his chest. "Does Jim know you have that?"

"No. He put it in one of the desk drawers. I nicked it while you both were out of the room." John handed it to Sherlock. "Jim may be right about half of London handling it with no ill effects other than plasters and tetanus jabs, but..."

"Excellent. I'll go to Barts tonight and examine it. Jim only works until eleven, so I should be unencumbered by explanations."

"And in the meantime, I suppose we'll be moving furniture and pulling back rugs to find if those floorboard stains are still there?"

"Unnecessary. They are."

John looked interested. "You mean it's confirmation?"

Sherlock shook his head. "It means nothing. I went over every inch of the flat when we moved in; I haven't deleted any of the details."

"Wait, so you're saying it _wasn't_ damage done by the original Holmes?"

"Oh, it easily could be. But it does nothing to prove whether I am actually seeing a past life or am simply making up an elaborate hallucination. Everything I have seen could have come from my memories and from books. Perhaps Wednesday we will get more data."

"And we can give Jim back his box." John's eyebrows lowered. "I'm taking a definite dislike to it. That's a hell of a trick to play on someone."

Sherlock looked out the window and didn't respond.

* * *

Sherlock had planned to spend the afternoon on the couch, reviewing what he knew so far about the six open cases. Instead, he fell asleep and didn't wake until after midnight.

 _What is **wrong** with me?_ , he wondered as he sat up and catalogued the room ( _John had indeed moved the rug and the bookcase in the corner, enough to see the stains for himself; the fact that Sherlock had slept through it spoke poorly for his physical state; John was upstairs, asleep_ ). It would be horribly inconvenient if he were actually falling ill. But no, no fever, no aches, no scratchy throat or clogged nasal passages.

And no nightmares. That, at least, was promising.

He called his favourite cab service and was in the lab a half hour later. Unfortunately, it wasn't empty; Molly Hooper was working late tonight. He ignored her and set up the microscope and slides.

"Hi, Sherlock...oh, that looks like Jim's trick box."

"Very similar," Sherlock agreed. "Do you have any useful observations, or are you merely spouting trivia?"

"If you keep your fingers to the sides instead of the middle, you won't prick your finger. I was lucky when I opened it and did it right."

"Congratulations." He was not about to admit that he hadn't. "Now be quiet."

A few minutes later, he added, "The definition of 'quiet', surprisingly, excludes humming."

She looked up from her slides. "Oh, sorry. But you might like this song. It's a folksong about a serial killer."

What was it about forensics people and tune production? Was it just that they had a captive audience? "A large percentage of folksongs are about murders and murderers. Nonetheless, I don't care to listen to them. The murderers are usually obvious; the mystery is long solved; and they have nothing to add to our knowledge of crime and criminals."

"This one's good, though; his final victim pushes him off a cliff and saves herself. 'No help, no help, oh false sir John, no help or pity for thee; it's seven king's daughters you have drowned, and the eighth will not be me....'"

Sherlock swooped to his feet and gathered the box and slides. "How much longer will you be working?"

Molly smiled shyly. "Another ten minutes at most."

"Good. I'll be back in eleven."

He walked down to the office wing—Mike Stamford probably hadn't changed his password lately, so his desktop would serve for some work—and nearly bumped into Jim.

Damn! "You're here late." ( _T-shirt featuring a cartoon of a scruffy stick figure talking on a phone and a punchline about systems administrators, shirt rumpled but free of food debris; box with operating system installation disk; thumb drive in left jeans pocket. Probably repairing a computer infected with a virus._ )

"Virus in one of the faculty computers. Ironic, isn't it? I hope he takes better precautions for surgery than he does for music downloads." Jim grinned. "And what about you?"

"Some analysis for a case. I'm waiting for the lab to be clear."

"You're checking the spring on that box, aren't you?"

What? "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"It wasn't in the drawer after you left. I may not be the incredible Sherlock Holmes, but I can make an occasional deduction." Jim leaned against the wall. "Keep it as long as you need to. Analyse it to your heart's content. You won't find anything, because there's nothing to find. But you need to see that for yourself."

This was unbelievable. "Is this the kind of conversation that won the heart of Molly Hooper?"

Jim chuckled. "Not in the slightest. This is purely professional. To have the most success in our sessions, you need to trust me. And you don't, not yet." He raised his hand before Sherlock could argue or agree. "Which is entirely sensible. Given your work, you've probably made a lot of enemies. If I want your trust, I'll have to earn it, by showing you time and time again that I'm not going to harm you."

"Sentimental tosh."

"But true." Jim straightened. "Oh, and I was thinking, do you have any heirlooms that belonged to your cousin?"

"A couple of items." He thought of the Strad, thought of Mycroft's offer, pushed the thought away.

"Why don't you bring one on Wednesday? We might try using it as a focus for regression, see what you can find out from it. Well, good night; see you Wednesday morning."

Molly was gone when Sherlock returned to the lab, and he immediately set to work. By the end of the night, Sherlock was half relieved, half disappointed, to find that the spring appeared clean. As best he could tell, the only substances on the spring were skin and traces of blood, the quantity so low as to suggest, in spite of Jim's list of past victims, that it was all his own, that someone had cleaned it thoroughly before Sherlock's accident. The data from pricking his fingers with sterile lancets once, twice, and three times agreed.

_But why would someone bother cleaning the spring? It'd be easier to remove it entirely. Conclusion: someone, or several someones, wanted that box intact. Why?_

No answers came to mind, and he filed the thought in the "solution: likely unfindable" sector.


	6. 9 June - 11 June

John walked around Jim's office studying the architectural drawings on the walls. They were certainly an eclectic mix, famous buildings and unknown, intricate multi-room structures and near-warehouses, elevations and floor plans and projections. The label on one gave him pause. "Please tell me this isn't really a drawing of 221 Baker Street."

Sherlock, having put the black-and-white box in Jim's desk, was already sprawled in his usual chair while they waited; they'd arrived several minutes early for the appointment, and Jim had told them to make themselves comfortable. He didn't even look towards the drawing. "Of course it is."

That was disturbing. "Obsessed much?"

"Hardly. It was a popular print immediately after my cousin's death; it's still so common that a print must be in pristine condition to sell for more than forty pounds. I've seen it in several collections."

It still felt unsettling. Jim did, however, seem genuinely fascinated by the story of the 19th century Holmes—what other explanation was there for his spending so much time on these sessions, when he could presumably spend the time seeing a paying client?

And John couldn't argue that the hypnosis wasn't beneficial. Sherlock had slept most of Monday afternoon and evening, and another nine hours on Tuesday night, with no nightmares that John was aware of—a better record even than Sherlock's usual post-case collapses.

Jim finally came in, carrying a kettle. "Tea for either of you?" He grinned at Sherlock. "Assuming you trust me not to poison it?"

What was _that_ about? Something, certainly, as Sherlock paused for an instant before saying, "You are hardly stupid enough to try that when you would be the first suspect."

"I'll take that as a yes. John?"

He had been thirsty, but.... "No, thanks." He took up his station on the couch instead.

Jim poured two cups, let Sherlock choose one, added milk to the other, and drank. Sherlock stirred his own cup for a minute, then sipped the tea, staring at Jim the whole time. When the cup was half finished, he set it aside. "Upper right desk drawer," he said.

What?

"Oh?" Jim opened the drawer and took out the box. "Of course. Did you find anything?"

Sherlock looked bored. "What was there to find?"

"Exactly."

John looked from Sherlock to Jim. He had definitely missed something. Or was being left out of something.

Jim put the box away and sat back. "What else did you bring?"

Sherlock reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a framed sepia-toned photograph of an attractive young woman. "This was my cousin's. We have no idea who the subject was; there is no name on the photograph. The clothing suggests a portrait date circa 1885; given the subject's apparent age, it is unlikely that she is a close relative of his."

John leaned forward to see the picture more closely. Whoever she was, she was quite good-looking, and she smiled at the camera as if amused by its audacity.

"Perfect." Jim turned down the lamps and lit the candle. "Let's use this photograph as a focus for today's session, then, and see whether you can tell me anything about her. Perhaps we'll be able to verify the information later."

It was slow going. It took over an hour for Sherlock to enter the trance, and then he cried out and fell out of trance twice. John was gripping the arm of the couch by the time Sherlock finally relaxed, smiled, and said, "Miss Irene Adler."

Jim echoed John's mental question. "Who is she?"

"One of the few women—one of the few _people_ —who ever outwitted Sherlock Holmes. She was a longtime lover of the King of Moravia; when he cast her off, she threatened to use a photograph of the two of them as blackmail to disrupt his engagement. So he hired Holmes to find and retrieve the portrait. Holmes discovered its location by a ruse, and now he, Watson, and the King are in her house. They go to the fireplace, and Holmes opens the hidden cabinet where Adler kept the portrait. But she had already realized that she betrayed its location, and she has left a letter and this portrait." He paused for several seconds. "Yes, he did it very well indeed."

A long silence followed; Sherlock finally said, "The contents of the letter satisfy the King, and Holmes asks for and receives the portrait as a souvenir of the case."

"Excellent," Jim said. "When are you seeing this?"

"The eighth of September, 1889." Sherlock chuckled. "A week ago, Watson was commissioned to write up another of Holmes' cases for publication. On their way back to 221B, Holmes tells Watson that if he ever chooses to publish the details of _this_ case, it is only on the condition that Watson disguise his client's name and the dates, as Holmes would lose far too many clients if they knew their personal affairs would later be spread across magazine signatures by his biographer."

Something Sherlock's blogger should keep in mind too, John thought.

Sherlock continued, "Watson retaliates by teasing him about the portrait and gives his condolences that Miss Adler is now married, for clearly she is the only woman who could have suited the mind and heart of Sherlock Holmes. Holmes makes an offhand response, and...."

This time the silence was longer. _Damn it, Sherlock, say something!_

After five minutes, Jim finally snapped his fingers four times. Immediately Sherlock opened his eyes and straightened. "Thank you. Text me with the time for the next session. Come on, John!"

And again he was out the door. John looked at Jim, who shrugged and said, "He'll tell me about whatever it is when he's ready. I'll see you in a few days."

This time, at least, Sherlock held the cab long enough for John to catch up. "Where are we going?" John asked.

"St. John's Wood. I don't know the current name of the street, but we should be able to find it within an hour."

"Find what? And what was that about earlier? It was almost as bad as a conversation between you and your brother."

Sherlock didn't answer, staring out the window until something caught his attention. "Stop here," he said.

For the next twenty minutes, John followed Sherlock down street after street until Sherlock stopped in front of a large house. "This is the house."

"What, the one from your...."

"Yes." Sherlock studied the façade. "I can't rule out the possibility that I've walked by this house before. I am absolutely certain, however, that I've never been inside."

John knew immediately what was coming. "I really don't think...."

"Text me if anyone comes." And Sherlock was over the fence into the back garden.

"...that this is a good idea. But what do I know?" This was getting ridiculous. Why couldn't Jim just hypnotise Sherlock into not giving a damn about someone who'd been dead a hundred and twenty years?

And why was Jim so interested, anyway, family connection or no?

It was an amazingly long three minutes before the front door opened. Sherlock looked at John silently. "Well?" John asked.

Sherlock still didn't speak, but stepped back and waited. John sighed, mentally added four years to his expected prison term, and followed Sherlock into the house.

It was uncomfortably formal, the kind of house John would have expected that banker git Sebastian to live in. Sherlock ignored the furnishings and exquisite artwork, heading straight for the fireplace. He pushed carefully on a panel on the left side, and a small door slid open.

"So there really is a secret compartment." John realized what he'd said. Christ. "So you did know what was here."

"I didn't _know_. I _saw_." Sherlock closed the door carefully. "Let's go before someone investigates the alarm."

"What alarm...damn it, Sherlock!"

They cleared the garden wall, dodged two lines of washing, climbed another gate, and were several streets away by the time the sirens approached. One shortcut through a plumbing supply shop by way of the back entrance—the owner clearly recognized Sherlock and just waved them through; a few minutes standing in a small crowd around a busker; and several zig-zags and back-trackings later, Sherlock hailed a cab to take them back to Baker Street. John fell into the seat and briefly wondered whether hypnosis could cure a craving for danger and whether he'd want the cure if it existed.

Sherlock was silent the entire way home. Once in the flat, he set the photograph on the mantelpiece and planted himself on the couch in the position John had labeled Thinking Pose 3a.

John let the silence continue for two hours before finally saying, "Sadly, your telepathy skills are rubbish."

"Still thinking."

"Right. I'm going for takeaway. You're thinking and not eating, I assume?"

Sherlock didn't answer, but John was only a few steps down the street when he received the text *Plain rice and tarka dal.* He texted back, *Multitasking tonight?*, but there was no further response.

When he returned, Sherlock apparently hadn't moved. John set the food down. "Any conclusions yet?"

"You expect conclusions already? John, my entire view of the universe has just been altered."

"Would explaining it to an ordinary person help?"

"Isn't it obvious without my explaining? If there is one quality I undoubtedly have, it is a scientific mind. Where there is solid evidence for a fact, no matter how unpleasant, I have been willing to believe it. And now, I have evidence that reincarnation exists. Past lives exist. Future lives presumably exist. When we die, we do not simply cease to be; something of us goes on. What do I _do_ with that?"

"Same things you've always done? Solve cases, do experiments, and let the food your flatmate bought you get cold?"

Sherlock abruptly sat up. "You seem remarkably unconcerned. Did you privately believe in past lives yourself?"

 _'I've been from one side of the universe to the other, and I've seen a lot of strange things.'_ No, Sherlock probably wouldn't get that reference. "I didn't believe, no. I just...didn't _not_ believe. Insufficient evidence."

"Unusually rational of you." Sherlock looked thoughtful. "If I was Sherlock Holmes in a former life, you might have been John Watson."

John laughed. "I don't think so. For one thing, I remember where I was injured in Afghanistan." _And for another, I would have written those stories about Holmes much better._

Sherlock's eyebrows lowered. "You remember, and yet you don't; your brain was convinced that your leg was injured, even though it wasn't."

"That's hardly proof."

"You shot a man for me after knowing me for less than two days."

"I did that for a couple people in my unit too."

Sherlock waved that aside. "Maybe the next time we see Jim, you should try a regression yourself."

 _No. Fucking. Way._ He was surprised by the vehemence of that thought. "I'd rather not, thanks."

"Can you think of a logical reason why you shouldn't?"

"Not at all. I can think of the perfectly illogical but valid reason: I really don't want to."

"I see," Sherlock said after a pause. "It's too embarrassing for you. You don't want to reveal your past self to a stranger; nor do you feel safe letting Jim have access to your mind. Especially since he is so interested in me and dismisses you as irrelevant."

There were times when John really wished Sherlock would keep his observations to himself. "Fine. You're right. Nor do I particularly want to find out that I was the other John Watson, or Queen Victoria, or an underfed street urchin who died of diphtheria at the age of nine. And one of us needs to keep their head clear in those sessions if Jim is up to something. Which I think he is, given how he acted about that box."

"Oh, he certainly has an ulterior motive. But if that motive isn't related to me, then it's irrelevant."

 _Brain the size of a planet. Ego even bigger._ "So, what was it that froze you up at the end of the regression this time?"

Sherlock got up and opened the two containers holding his food. He ate one spoonful out of each and resealed them, then sat back down on the couch and rested his chin on his hands. "I don't know."

Right. "Should I translate that as 'I don't know' or as 'I'm not telling you'?"

"I genuinely don't know. I wanted to see the rest of Holmes and Watson's conversation, but it was as if there was a wall blocking me from it. And it felt like—a ridiculous conceit, but it felt like I myself had built that wall. But that doesn't matter." He tapped his fingers together. "A new aspect of the universe, and I can't even run the experiments needed to see how it works. Do we reincarnate immediately upon dying, or is there a time gap? Do we only come back as humans, or is any life form a possibility? How is it determined whom we reincarnate as—by shared DNA, by actions in past life, or simply randomly?"

"Is it even relevant? You don't care about astronomy either, or high energy physics, or...."

"Reincarnation, John. A theoretical possibility of talking to the actual victim of a murder."

"Well, several years later; they've got to grow old enough to talk first."

Sherlock ignored him. "Some new particle at CERN isn't relevant. Solving a long-cold case? That's _useful_." His smile broadened. "The coldest case. I may finally be able to find out who really killed my cousin, and to _prove_ it." He lay back down on the couch, Thinking Pose 3b (differing from 3a by the pillow being under Sherlock's feet rather than his head). "You can put the rest of that away. I won't be eating any more tonight."

John sighed and put away Sherlock's food before eating his own. By the time John finished washing up, Sherlock had fallen asleep. 

_I will never tell him that he snores. He can deduce that for himself._

* * *

John worked at the surgery the next day, and came home to find Sherlock picking at his violin and cross because Jim had called to say he couldn't schedule another session for at least a week. "Day job," John pointed out. "And likely other clients, or at least I'd hope so if he expects to keep up rent on that office, even if it is his mother's house."

"Not as interesting as my case," Sherlock replied. "To him, not just to me."

The violin abuse continued throughout the night. John finally managed to doze off around four and slept until the ringing of Sherlock's phone woke him a little before seven. He blinked at the sound. "Sherlock, why is your phone in my room?"

"Just answer it," Sherlock called up. "And tell Lestrade I'm busy."

It was indeed Lestrade, and he was clearly underthrilled by Sherlock's message. "Let me talk to him. It's another of those planted bodies, and we _need_ him."

When John took the phone downstairs, Sherlock was sitting at the table surrounded by old newspaper clippings and papers. John handed him the phone. "You tell him. I'm not your go-between on this one."

He made tea as he listened to Sherlock. "I said, I'm busy. No. No. Absolutely not. I don't care what Anderson found in the man's mouth; I'd be surprised if he could find the teeth and tongue. No. I'll call you when I'm available again." Sherlock slammed down the phone. "If Lestrade's team paid any attention to my methods, they'd still need me because they're idiots, but they could figure out simple problems without my help."

"Simple problems like the six open cases of planted bodies? Or is it seven now?"

Sherlock glared at him and opened a large book. "I have my cousin's case to work on."

"Did I miss the moment last night when the space aliens replaced the real Sherlock Holmes with you? Are you really more interested in a 19th century murder than in a case Lestrade has for you right now?"

Sherlock didn't look up from the book. "I have to be. The case of my cousin is, must be, behind my nightmares. If I don't solve that case, I will be in no shape to solve Lestrade's. Consider it like the oxygen masks on airplanes. I must secure my own mask before I assist another."

"But surely...."

"If you're so curious, by all means go and see it for yourself."

"All right, I will. I'll even tell you if I find anything interesting."

Sherlock harrumphed and continued reading.

* * *

 _This was a stupid idea_ , John thought as he approached the crime scene, the back of a building not far from Covent Garden Market. _Why am I even here? I can't do what Sherlock does; I can't find that useful clue that everyone else missed and know why it's important._

Lestrade met him at the barrier and glanced at the empty spot by John. "Yeah, he still wouldn't come," John said. "I won't stay; I'm not supposed to be here anyway."

"Hell, it's not as if you're ever supposed to be here. Have a look around; God knows _we_ aren't finding anything useful. Can't even figure out who these poor sods were."

John ducked under the tape. "So I hear you aren't the first Lestrade to work with a Sherlock Holmes."

That produced a grin. "Yeah, he was my great-grandfather. Germain Lestrade. I thought you already knew about that."

"Not until recently."

"Oh, my great-uncle remembered the stories he'd tell about working with Holmes. First time I saw this one when he was high on cocaine and calling himself Sherlock Holmes, I figured he was just delusional. Then I thought I was repeating history. Then he pestered me about family papers until I lied and told him they'd all been destroyed; someday when he acts like an adult, I'll reward him by remembering where Great-grandad's diaries are." He shook his head, then looked at John. "He's not using again, is he?"

"No." John was certain of that.

"That's something, anyway. Anderson! Let Dr. Watson look around for a minute."

Anderson stopped humming as John bent to see the body. "That bastard finally find a new hobby? It's about time."

John ignored that. "So, the mysterious object in the corpse's mouth is a ruby, then?"

"Sapphire." Anderson shone the flashlight past the dead man's slack jaw—another one dead some time, then—and at the back of the man's tongue, a blue jewel sparkled.

"Then why the hell were you humming 'Ruby Tuesday'?"

Anderson snarled, "I don't know a song with 'sapphire' in the lyrics, okay?"

Neither did John, when he thought about it. "Could be a blue ruby. Like the Eye of Argon."

Gratifyingly, Anderson got the reference, and that seemed to smooth his feathers. "No, then it'd be a cerulean ruby. Anyway, it's yet another with no sign of how he got here. Actually has an obvious cause of death this time—his neck's broken."

Very obvious, though it could've been done after death. What would Sherlock look for on this corpse? Did it matter that the man was wearing an ordinary business suit and a bowler hat, that he had no rings and no sign he'd ever worn any, that there was a scratch on the outside of his left hand or a flyer for a band called Foie Gras in his right, that his shoes were brown and relatively unscuffed? "Any idea how long he's been here?"

"Definitely before 3:00 a.m. I'd call him three days dead—maybe longer; he's got that formaldehyde odour that a couple of the bodies have had." Anderson looked down at his evidence bags. "At least we'll have uncontaminated crime scenes until Sherlock gets off his arse and starts harassing us again."

John had no good response to that, or at least not one he was about to give Anderson. 

Leaving the scene, John ran into Donovan, who had just finished talking to a street vendor. She stopped him and said, "Is something wrong with the freak?"

"Sherlock's never been better," John replied automatically. "Why do you ask?"

"This makes seven bizarre crimes in the past month and a half, and he doesn't care. Look at this—dead man with a gemstone shoved down his craw, and he tells the boss it sounds boring. He didn't finally crack and start his serial killer career, did he?"

John sighed. As old as the accusations got, he could admit that she had a point. "Body's been here at least since three in the morning, right?"

"Probably since somewhere between one and two a.m., from the statements we have so far."

"I'm reasonably certain that Sherlock was in our flat from 4:00 yesterday afternoon until 9:45 this morning. And believe me, I can absolutely assure you that he was in the flat from midnight till four. Unless I've started hallucinating the violin playing and six trips downstairs to tell him to put the damn thing away."

Donovan actually smiled at that. "You're as mad as he is, to put up with that. So what's he doing that's so much more interesting than a weird murder?"

"He's working on the murder of Sherlock Holmes."

"Oh, that's what the midnight concerts are for? You're too easy-going; he'll have to try harder than that. I know—how about something classic? I'll call the boss, and the whole team can share a car with him on the Eurostar and reenact _Murder on the Orient Express_."

If he had done more than doze in the last forty-eight hours, he'd have been offended on Sherlock's behalf; as it was, he couldn't repress a giggle. "That probably would work. He's never read Christie; he wouldn't know what was coming."

"You're joking. I thought the freak would know all the classic detective novels."

"Nope. He's never read Sayers; he's never read Allingham; he says he managed to read two chapters of one of Conan Doyle's Sherringford and Sacker mysteries because of who they're based on, but he ended up throwing the book against the wall."

"Of course he would." She paused. "You mean he's working on the murder of _that_ Sherlock Holmes."

"Yeah."

"God, talk about a cold case. How's he planning on tackling that?"

He was not about to tell Donovan that it involved dubious hypnotic techniques. "Papers. Family records. I have no idea, really."

"Seems to me that if the best detectives and mystery writers of the past century couldn't solve it, he's not going to have any luck either. Then again, this _is_ Freak we're talking about." She shook her head. "And you with that name, and you decided to live with him anyway."

"Yeah, I didn't know then. You know what's worse? My middle name's Hamish."

"You can't be serious."

"I'll show you my passport sometime."

She laughed. "That's it, I have to lend you Tey's _Daughter of Time_. It's dedicated to you."

"Oh, God."

"You ought to read it anyway; it's a classic." She shook her head. "So Freak's finally cracked, but at least it probably won't involve bodies. The boss won't be happy, though."

"On the other hand, Anderson probably thinks that Christmas and six weeks of holiday arrived at once." He realized his gaffe when Donovan made a dismissive sound. Oops. "Not on anymore, I take it?"

"Haven't been since the freak... It was a bad idea anyway, taking up with someone from work, but it's damn hard to meet someone anywhere else, and since he's married I didn't have to worry about him getting serious." She shrugged. "Anyway, guess you won't be around for a while."

"Probably not, no." He hadn't seen anything useful, unless that flyer counted, and that seemed too obvious.

"Hey, if Freak actually finds anything, let me know, would you?"

"Yeah, I can do that." He paused; well, she did read detective novels, and she was a police officer, so.... "Who do _you_ think killed the original Sherlock Holmes?"

"Oh, I'm sure Watson topped him. But hard evidence would be amazing. Be worth listening to the bragging if he comes up with the proof. Well, see you around."

"See you."

Back at Baker Street, Sherlock was still absorbed in his papers. John related what he'd seen about the corpse anyway, and only received the response, "Stop distracting me. You breathe too loudly."

At least, John thought as he settled in his room with tea and a book, Sherlock hadn't said that his observations were useless. Probably because he hadn't paid attention to any of them. But still. Maybe it'd be worth investigating further. That band, for example; was the man a member? a fan? They were performing next Thursday; he could always go there and see what he could find out.

And why not? God only knew how long Sherlock would be absorbed by the case of his cousin; there was going to be nothing for John to do but sit in Jim's office and make sure Jim didn't plant bizarre suggestions in Sherlock's mind. Why not investigate the other cases? He wasn't Sherlock Holmes, but he wasn't completely useless; he could find something that helped solve them.

Probably.

Maybe.

If nothing else, he could rule out some false leads so that Sherlock wouldn't have to waste time on them whenever he did decide to work on the mysterious corpses again.

If nothing else, he wouldn't be _bored_.


	7. 17 June

Sherlock had always found that the best way to make progress on a complicated case was to keep the accumulated data where he could see it, giving his brain the chance to constantly reload the information and make connections. Over the next few days, as the nightmare began to recur, he used the time awake to spread out the papers about his cousin from his files, first on the table and then, after John nearly spilled curry on one of the printouts, tacked to the wall above the couch.

When John came home from work Thursday evening ( _some patient had not been taking their antibiotics correctly; John always stomped up the stairs that particular way when he was thinking about resistant bacteria_ ), he came over and looked at the transcript Sherlock was reading before heading to the kitchen for tea and food. "So, why wasn't your cousin's murder an open and shut case?" he asked. "And did you do anything to the leftover takeaway?"

"I put it through the food-only blender. It's still edible."

John pulled the jug from the fridge and grimaced. "Drinkable, more like." He sniffed it, shrugged, and poured it into a glass ( _hungry; had so many patients that he'd missed lunch_ ).

As John sat down in his chair, Sherlock said, "There were two eyewitnesses, Heinrich Stehli from Thurgau and Colonel Sebastian Moran from London, both touring Reichenbach on holiday. Both said they saw one man push another over the falls; Stehli positively identified Dr. Watson as the murderer and said that several minutes after he saw the murder, Watson ran past him in the direction of Meiringen. Moran stated that he couldn't be completely certain, as he was too far away to see the man's face, but that the man's build and clothing matched Dr. Watson's. Stehli and the innkeeper at the Englischer Hof in Meiringen both said that Watson's clothing was muddy and disheveled, and an official who examined Watson found bruises. And of course at the falls, there were two sets of footprints; one was identified as Watson's and the other, after his body was recovered, as Holmes'." He pointed to the photograph in the microfilmed article from the _Journal de Geneve_. "The reproduction quality is abysmal, but you can see the two sets well enough."

John swallowed a mouthful of puree. "Doesn't seem to leave much room for doubt."

"The jury agreed. And while Watson claimed innocence, his refusal to otherwise defend himself during his trial was suspect. However." Sherlock climbed up on the sofa and pointed to one article near the ceiling. "From Stehli's position, the sun could have interfered with his ability to identify the men. Indeed, some months later, Stehli told friends that after seeing portraits of Holmes, he had realized the man he'd seen fall had not looked like Holmes, and therefore he now doubted his identification of Watson too. Before that question could be pursued further, Stehli died of a gunshot wound while hunting; the death was ruled accidental."

"And thus the conspiracy theories began."

"Precisely. And have continued since."

John looked expectantly at Sherlock. What more did John expect him to add? There was no other evidence; that was why the case was unsolved...oh, come _on_. "You would now like me to say that Watson's character precluded him committing murder."

"Didn't it?"

"Does anyone's? How many times have neighbors said 'but they seemed so _nice_ , so _quiet_ ' about an especially vicious killer?"

"True." John drained his glass. "Funny, if I think of this as curry gazpacho, it's actually not half bad." He set the glass aside. "Was your cousin as brilliant as you are?"

What a ridiculous question. "I have no way of knowing. He was certainly extremely intelligent, but a precise comparison of our intellects isn't possible."

"Well, the fact that you say he _was_ intelligent means he must have been on your general level. So if he was really as good a detective as you, if he could read people as well as you...."

"Everything I've read and been told indicates yes, he could."

"Then why isn't _his_ opinion of Watson evidence?"

"He was a genius, not infallible." _Harry is short for Harriet._ Sherlock sighed. "It's a touching conceit that Holmes would have known Watson's character on sight, but the reality is that Holmes could have been fooled. Or Watson could indeed have been incapable of premeditated murder, but actually acted in a fit of anger." He glanced at the clock. "You're going to be late if you don't leave soon; Foie Gras' set starts at seven."

"Oh, thanks." John paused. "Wait, how did you know?"

John had written it on his calendar, so Sherlock wasn't going to dignify that idiocy with a response. "And don't disturb the worms in the washbasin."

After John left, muttering about vermiculture, Sherlock resumed his study of the papers.

The available data was, of course, not enough to prove Watson innocent; quite the contrary. But the third man Watson had claimed was the true murderer (and had not named; did he not know who the man was, or had he kept silent for other reasons?)—what if that man could be identified? People had tried, of course; Sherlock had read theories involving everyone from Jack the Ripper to the Marquess of Salisbury. But none of the theories had any real evidence to support them, though Sherlock appreciated the ingenuity of the person who'd used railway timetables to show that Arthur Conan Doyle could have travelled to Reichenbach and back without missing the classes he was taking in Vienna.

With the regressions, though—if they were reliable; he should not build too much on one confirmation, and _yet_ —at the very least, it should be possible to find out whether a third person _was_ present, to put a face on the man his past self had wrestled with. And if he could find a name, then, _then_ he might be able to find real evidence, evidence that couldn't be dismissed as hallucination or imagination.

He finished reading the transcript and scanned his accumulated email. Damn, the one Swiss archive he'd emailed no longer had the visitor logs from the prison; they had been destroyed in a fire in the 1950s. He'd have to consider alternative ways to find out who'd visited Watson in prison; if Watson had truly been poisoned, it seemed plausible that the poisoner might be connected with Holmes' death as well.

Some hours later, his phone chirped.

The text was from Jim. *surprise—free for cpl of hrs. have time 4 a session?*

John was still not back. Sherlock weighed the options—the risk of a session without John (Jim had ulterior motives, but were they dangerous to Sherlock?) versus the certainty of having to wait at least another week. The answer was easy. 

*Expect me in 20-30 minutes. SH*

And then one to John. *On my way to Jim's. Meet me there in 20 minutes. SH*

* * *

Traditional Breton and klezmer were both perfectly good varieties of music, and the banjo a valid instrument, but John suspected the three really weren't meant to be combined. Still, Foie Gras clearly had a loyal following, and the woman who played the clarinet and bagpipe—well, it was a pity that she introduced the drummer as her husband. And the pub was comfortable, though John wasn't sure why the owners had decorated it with a combination of old botanical prints and Picasso-esque drawings of animals.

At the break, he went up to the stage. The cute clarinettist had already disappeared out the back door, but John managed to catch the attention of the drummer. "I really liked that one piece, what was it called, 'War Hent Churchill Downs'?"

"Thanks! It's on our upcoming album, if you want to sign up for our mailing list."

John briefly considered giving Sherlock's email address, then thought better of it. "One of my friends is already on it, so he'll let me know. I thought I was going to see him here tonight; he says he makes every one of your concerts. Brown-haired, glasses, few years older than me, tall and kind of stocky?"

"Hmm. You talking about Ed over there?"

He looked for form's sake. "No, that's not him."

"Can't think who else it might be, then. Doesn't sound like one of our regulars."

"Damn. Well, thanks."

A familiar voice said, "I told you he was fooling around on you."

He automatically responded, "You don't know that," before turning to see Sally Donovan.

She rolled her eyes. "Warned you off him how many times? And still you kept going right back to him. Hi, Oliver."

The drummer grinned. "Hi, Sally. Glad you could make it. Any luck finding that bloke?"

"Can't talk about it, sorry."

"Too bad." He turned back to John. "Did she tell you? Dead body found last week holding one of our flyers."

"That's very bizarre," John replied. Of course the Yarders had already looked into this. He really was an idiot.

"Too bad we aren't a metal band; would've been great publicity. Sally here interviewed Rachel and me on Saturday—feels like we're in a crime drama."

John's phone chirped. Oh, not again. He looked at the text. What?

"And there's himself calling. Where does he say he is?" Donovan asked casually.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" John texted *on my way* and put away the phone. "He claims to be here and wants to meet up at a friend's party in twenty minutes."

"Need witnesses for the breakup?"

He was about to say no, and then thought, _she needs an exit_. "Witnesses, no. Moral support on the way, yeah."

When they'd gotten a couple of streets away from the pub, John said, "Was I interfering with anything there?"

"No more than the freak usually does. How's he coming with his project?"

"Well, in the great wall space match, the 1891 newspaper articles are beating out the photos of the mysterious bodies. I don't think he's found anything new, though. And there probably isn't any other evidence anymore."

"Yeah, you'd think the Watsonians would've found it by now. You never know, though. There could be hotel records, passport information, visitor records from the prison. Even letters or a diary, maybe. You'd have to be really lucky to find a letter from someone else confessing to it, but it's not impossible."

That was unexpectedly detailed. "You've thought about this before, haven't you?"

"I read history in university."

"I didn't know that."

"Not like I ever told you, is it?" She shrugged. "I loved it, but once I finished, my mother said it'd be pointless for me to spend the rest of my life with my nose in an archive and asked me what I was going to do that was useful. So I applied to the Met and became a constable. Turned out that she wanted me to be an accountant."

John laughed. "Hardly the same career path."

"You'd be surprised. But yeah, we had a few disagreements. I didn't honestly think I'd make it through training. But have you ever done something and discovered that you loved it and had no idea you would?"

 _First time I fired a gun. First time I followed Sherlock on the trail of a criminal._ "First surgery on a live human. Appendectomy. When it was over I thought I'd be happy if I could do that every day for the rest of my life. I never did get tired of it, but after I got shot...." No point in being maudlin. "So you like the job?"

"Once I was accepted as a Detective Constable? It's like having a hundred puzzles that you're missing half the pieces for, and if you don't find them in just the right order you can't solve them, and if you find them the wrong way your solution doesn't count. It's tedium and imagination and detail work and supporting hunches. It's failing most of the time, but when you succeed—God, it's the best thing in the world." She grinned. "Don't ever tell him I said this, but I do actually understand why the freak loves detective work. Main difference between us is that he loves the crimes too."

"You read mysteries," John pointed out.

"Theoretical crimes are great. Actual crimes? Hate them. And if I do my job well, there's fewer of them." Sally paused at the next corner. "You're going that way? I'll see you later, then."

"Later. Thanks for recommending the Tey, by the way; I found a used copy. It was a good story." Even if it had been strange to see his own name in the dedication— _To John Hamish Watson; may the truth be revealed in time_.

As she turned away, she said over her shoulder, "You ever need more reading suggestions, just ask."

He was tempted to ask now, but said nothing; he couldn't dawdle if he wanted to reach Jim's in time.

* * *

Sherlock got out of the cab at Jim's office to find John waiting. Good; they could start right away, then.

Jim opened the door as they climbed the steps. "Come in; keep quiet until we're in the office—my mother should be sleeping by now. Tea?"

"Yes." If Jim was slipping anything into the tea, it had not harmed him yet, and as Jim was drinking from the same brewing, either the tea was fine or there existed an antidote.

As Sherlock sipped—John had refused again, which obscurely annoyed Sherlock, but it did no harm for John to be cautious—Jim said, "We don't have very much time; I have to be at Barts in an hour to see whether a software installation took. Is there anything in particular you want to try as an entry focus?"

 _I want to go straight to Reichenbach and see who I am wrestling with._ "Any moment when Holmes is working on a case."

"I doubt that narrows it down. But let's see what happens."

It took at least fifteen minutes for Sherlock to relax sufficiently; Jim actually betrayed a little impatience this time, though not enough for most people to notice. But at last Sherlock felt his mind bend into the right configuration. Again the descent; again the rush past a blur of agony.

He opened his internal eyes into utter darkness.

Darkness, but there was much to observe nonetheless. The faint residual smell from the extinguished lamp; the occasional odd animal cry from outside; the quiet breathing of both men. Neither spoke; any noise would give them away to the heinous murderer who worked his ill purposes in the adjacent room. And yet, there was perfect communication, Watson on guard like the old campaigner he was, and Holmes crouching like a leopard waiting to leap upon its prey.

"What is the prey?" asked the gentle voice.

"A snake," the observer replied. "A poisonous snake that the murderer sends through a vent between the rooms. He means to kill his stepdaughter undetectably, for this species is unknown in England; he does not know that she sleeps in another room tonight, that her place has been taken by Holmes and Watson, that the fate he intended for her will rebound upon him." It would be hours yet, though, and for now there was simply the silence.

"Good. Now, move forward, and tell me about something else."

He knew exactly what he wanted to see, and by now, he knew how to get there, though not how to stay.

Reichenbach again. Slippery mud, struggling for balance, one moment trying to wrestle down his opponent, the next clinging to him to keep afoot, the man's face, he must see the man's face, _there!_

Then pain/rage/sorrow/despair flung him away, left Sherlock staring at Jim and clenching his jaw to repress the gasps.

Jim shook his head. "I really think that you should wait a few more sessions before trying to see your past self's death again."

"Nonsense." He had it. He had it. He would confirm it, as soon as these ridiculous chest tremors stopped. Sherlock picked up his cup, willed his hand to stillness, and drank.

"I liked that snake story," John said, clearly trying to distract them from Sherlock's dubious mental state. "Too bad Dr. Watson didn't write that up. Then again, if he had, it'd have had six chapters on the natural history of the snake and how it ended up in England."

Sherlock forced out a chuckle. "And four irrelevant chapters on how the murderer came to be married to the young woman's mother."

Jim's eyebrows rose. "It's not one of the cases Dr. Watson wrote up in prison, then?"

"Anyone's guess. The manuscripts have long vanished."

"Well, that's disappointing. I thought maybe your family might have copies."

"Why? Watson wasn't our relative." Sherlock set down the cup. "Call me when you're next able to schedule a session. John, I'll be home later."

He was out the door before John could protest.

* * *

Not. Again. "I really hate it when he does that," John said.

"He does like the dramatic exit, doesn't he?" Jim stood and gestured for John to precede him into the hall. "Pity I can't stay to chat, but while hypnosis is my vocation, IT is my job."

 _And thus, I am dismissed._ "Mind if I use the loo before I leave?"

"Other side of the staircase, door on the back wall." Jim pulled a scuffed leather backpack from a cupboard under the stairs. "You can let yourself out; the door's set to lock behind you."

He couldn't help saying it. "Glad I seem non-threatening."

"Oh, you _are_." Jim grinned, and John told himself that the hint of seriousness was his imagination. "I'll probably see you two late next week," he said as he left.

When John exited the bathroom, Jim's mother was standing halfway down the staircase. "Could you spare a minute before you go?" she asked. "My computer is giving me trouble, and James had to leave for work."

So much for Jim worrying about her sleeping, John thought. "I'll take a look, but I can't promise anything. Sherlock does most of our computer repairs, when he can be ar...when he's in the mood; I'm rubbish at the complicated stuff."

"I'll take that chance." She turned and climbed back up the stairs, faster than John would have expected. "It's my Internet connection; it's dropped suddenly." 

"Wireless or wired?" The upstairs corridor walls were covered with a mix of embroidery pieces, woven rugs, and photographs; Christ, was that toddler with a bowl of rice upended on his head _Jim_? Yes, it had to be.

"Oh, I have no idea." She opened a door to a sitting room, also full of woven wallhangings and photographs; the laptop sat on a small table, next to a floor-to-ceiling set of cabinets.

After several minutes of exploring settings and reading help files, John had to admit himself stumped. "There's an ethernet cable plugged into it, but I can't tell whether it's carrying a signal, and there certainly isn't a wireless network that I can pick up. I'm sure there's a way to test further, but I'm afraid you're going to have to wait for Jim to come home. Sorry I'm not any help."

She rose from her chair. "Quite all right, Dr. Watson."

"Wait, how did you know my name?"

"James doesn't discuss his clients with me, of course, but he's so excited about working with Sherlock Holmes, he couldn't help telling me about both of you."

And he'd already made it clear that he wasn't Sherlock, who would have fixed her wireless, defragmented her hard drive, and found and zapped a virus she didn't realize she had. And possibly installed a keystroke logger, if he thought she might have useful information; Lestrade had once explained why Sherlock was no longer allowed to put a flash drive into any computer at the Met. "I see."

"No details, of course. I prefer to remain ignorant of his clients' reasons for consulting him. As for my computer difficulties...." She winked at him, opened one of the cabinet doors, and flipped a switch on the router inside. "I think I'll manage."

He should have been indignant. He was going to be indignant, as soon as he stopped laughing. "You win," he finally managed to say between giggles.

"No, you pass."

"I what?"

She only smiled and walked to the door. "I won't keep you any longer; I'm sure we'll meet again soon."

He followed her down the stairs; at the front door, he paused. Something about this whole situation made his brain itch, like he should be seeing something obvious and was missing it. "Does Jim know we had this conversation?"

" _A_ conversation, almost certainly. Don't worry; you haven't been in Bluebeard's chamber. That would be in his home."

John chuckled, not sure whether he was supposed to take that seriously. "Well. Good night...." Damn, he didn't even know her name; well, into the breach. "...Mrs. Moriarty. Is it Moriarty?"

"It is." She held out a hand, and he shook it carefully. "Good night, Dr. Watson."

* * *

Why did people have to take holidays at the most inconvenient time?

Sherlock glared at the evidence around Fred's flat ( _half-empty boxes of sweaters and other cold-weather clothing, stacked in a cupboard that they clearly weren't normally stored in; no suitcases to be found; pile of mail, four days old; no milk, fresh fruit, or leftovers in the fridge, but several hard cheeses and jars of condiments; empty rubbish bins; recently visited webpages included Heathrow, British Airways, First Air, and the Wikipedia pages for walrus and narwhal—the notation on the wall calendar was hardly necessary for confirmation_ ). 

Still wearing his gloves, he logged into Fred's account and emailed him. *I suppose it's too much to expect internet cafés in Ikpiarjuk. See me at 221B as soon as you get back; I need a composite drawing.* Then as an afterthought, *P.S. Come straight from the airport.*

He switched off the computer and let himself out, making sure the door latched and locked behind him.

Outside, a familiar car waited. "No," Sherlock said aloud and walked down the street.

The car caught up with him at the next crossing, and Mycroft opened the window. "One of Mr. Steele's neighbors called to report a burglary in process. If you accept a ride back to Baker Street, the police will be told it was a mistake; if not, well, I'm sure you can guess the consequences."

Sherlock shrugged. "An empty threat; I know exactly what the police are capable of."

"Which is why they will appreciate the assistance of an eyewitness who will positively identify you."

 _Mycroft, you bastard._ "You wouldn't dare."

"Do you care to test that hypothesis?"

Sherlock read every signal of Mycroft's facial muscles and posture. Damn it. He wrenched the door open. "Move over. You have twelve minutes, given current traffic conditions."

"Sixteen."

If he had to be reincarnated with a brother named Mycroft, why couldn't Mycroft have been the inferior in deduction this time? "What do you want?"

"The same thing as last time, my dear boy."

"You still haven't found the missing chemical formula." Sherlock leaned his head back (Mycroft did at least commandeer very comfortable cars; the leather was a far more pleasant texture than a rough synthetic weave). "Either your people are being unusually incompetent or this case might actually be interesting."

"Challenging, at the very least. Will you take it?"

It was almost tempting, especially if the Strad was still the reward....but no. "I'm busy."

Mycroft sighed. "The mystery of our cousin's death will wait another week, or month, or year. You will hardly be able to arrest his killer, after all. And everyone to whom it matters is long dead."

"Except me. It matters to me."

"You, my boy, are mistaking the nightmares of an obsessed child for the duty of a grown man whose talents would be better used elsewhere. There are living criminals for you to match wits against. There are people who will be harmed _now_ if you continue to do nothing."

"I am not doing nothing!" Sherlock stopped himself from continuing; he was not about to explain to Mycroft how he was researching the mystery.

Mycroft was silent for a while, then said, "You do a very poor job of concealing your database accesses, by the way."

Damn, had Mycroft figured out...damn. "Intentional. That way you'd know I'd done the background checks."

"I ran my own just to be certain; you lack a degree of finesse in reading between the lines."

"And what do you know about Jim Moriarty that I don't?"

"Most likely nothing, yet." Mycroft paused again. "These hypnotherapy sessions do seem to be helping you; you look much better than you did a month ago."

"If they weren't satisfactory, I wouldn't waste my time on them." 

"And are the past life regressions satisfactory as well?"

That...did not have the tone he had expected. "Don't tell me _you_ believe in reincarnation."

"As our cousin once said, when the impossible has been ruled out...."

"I would have classified reincarnation itself as impossible rather than improbable."

"Until you had an experience that made it the most rational explanation. Oh, come, Sherlock, do you think I would believe without _some_ evidence?"

"No," Sherlock admitted. Baker Street at last; sixteen minutes. Damn!

As Sherlock reached for the door handle, Mycroft said, "So, your answer remains no."

"Brilliantly deduced. If your case is so important, why don't you go investigate it yourself?"

"Because I cannot be two places at once. The closest I can get to that is by sending you."

"Flattery still gets you nowhere."

"Not flattery. Truth. Good night, Sherlock."

The flat was empty, to Sherlock's surprise, but John came in a few minutes later ( _not late enough to have stopped by another pub, and diminished strength of beer smell confirmed; however, pinker-cheeked than even the heat would account for; bemused expression; ah_ ). Sherlock said, "She's a bit old for you, don't you think? And how often must I tell you not to flirt with the clients?"

John shrugged and waggled his eyebrows. "Well, that's not a problem, is it? After all, you're the client this time."

He had to laugh at that, which set John off as well. When Sherlock regained his breath, he said, "For the moment. But Mrs. Moriarty is thinking about hiring me."

"What makes you say that?"

Really, how _did_ people stand living in tiny brains? "Why else would she want to talk to you?"

"Thanks so much." But the comment lacked venom, so John clearly agreed.

"Did she call you in before or after Jim left?"

"After."

"So she doesn't want him to know, which means she suspects him of some illegal activity, but isn't yet certain, or simply doesn't want to admit it's possible—typical parental delusion." Oh, this was _very_ interesting. And for now, not at all incompatible with the case of his cousin; even better. Now he only had to wait a week for Fred to return from holiday, get a drawing of the man from his vision, and set out to identify him.


	8. 25 June - 26 June

John sat down with his laptop and breakfast, far away from the table where Sherlock was working. It was, he had to admit, refreshing to see Sherlock absorbed in one of his experiments rather than buried in the papers on his cousin, even if it meant the table was covered by petri dishes containing pancreas slices. John couldn't shake the feeling that something was brewing, though; Sherlock had been oddly calm all week, and had spent far less time reading the articles on his cousin than usual. One afternoon John had even caught him flipping through the folder of crime scene photographs from the mysterious bodies, though Sherlock had shoved it aside after only a few minutes.

It was a bit annoying to have to admit that Jim's hypnosis was actually doing Sherlock some good.

He read the news headlines aloud as he ate his own breakfast. "Five hundred pounds of bread stolen from bakery."

"Disgruntled employee," Sherlock replied without looking up.

"Poisonous snake missing from London Zoo."

"Practical joke."

"Three people stabbed...."

"Gang."

"...in a wool shop."

"Oh?" Sherlock paused, pipette suspended over a dish, then returned to his work. "No, still gang."

John closed the laptop. "Good to hear that Hell's Grannies are still active."

"Who?"

"Never mind." There was a knock on the street door. "Want me to get that?"

"Might as well; it's for you." Before John could ask how he knew, Sherlock said, "Don't be an idiot. I can see the pavement from here."

"Your back's to the window."

Sherlock ignored him; John shook his head, but before he could go downstairs, Mrs. Hudson knocked and opened the flat door. "Don't worry, boys," she said, stepping aside to let Sally Donovan in. "She's not here on business."

John blinked. "Hi. Something wrong?"

"Nah, just had to interview someone in the neighborhood and wanted to drop this off." She handed him a battered paperback titled _The Good Doctor?_ "It's a collection of articles by mystery writers about the Holmes murder. I thought you might like to read it."

He was still awake, wasn't he? Sally Donovan, in 221B, being friendly? "You sure you're willing to chance it in this flat?"

She shrugged. "It's the copy I lend out. I want it back, but it won't be the first time one's vanished."

"Thanks, then. It looks interesting." John glanced over at Sherlock. "Have you ever read this?"

"Why? Secondary sources. Worthless."

"Come on," Sally said, "you couldn't do historical research without secondary sources. It's just like interviewing witnesses."

"It's worse. At least witnesses saw something. It's like reading Anderson's forensics report instead of viewing the scene." Sherlock finally looked up, then stared at Sally. "Odd."

Sally folded her arms. "What?"

"You really are just here to lend him a book. On my cousin's murder. Which you own multiple copies of."

She rolled her eyes. "Next time I'll remember to bring an arrest warrant so you won't feel left out."

"No, I mean, you are genuinely interested in the case."

"You do recall deducing my favourite books when we first met, don't you? Of _course_ I'm interested. What did you _think_ I was here for?"

John decided he didn't want to hear Sherlock's answer. "Now I'm wondering—Sherlock, you and Mycroft both said that Watson wrote up some of Holmes' other cases but that the manuscripts were lost."

"Mycroft?" Sally looked over at Sherlock. "Please tell me that's not your brother's name."

"Prepare for disappointment," Sherlock said, turning back to the pancreas slices.

"Whatever were your parents thinking?"

"In his case, obsession with obscure family names. In mine, they couldn't resist the shared birthday and parallel seven-year age gap." He added a few drops of chemical to each sample.

Someday, John thought, our kitchen will have a plaque commemorating the research that led either to a Nobel Prize in medicine or to the epidemic that wiped out London. He continued, "So that made me think, how did you know that? Was it family lore, or is there, I don't know, a book on Watson?"

Sherlock made a derisive noise. Sally glared at Sherlock and said, "You want the short bibliography or the long one?"

"Oh. Am I really the only person who'd never heard of him?"

She took pity on him. "Well, it's not as popular as the Ripper murders, but given how many of the Golden Age detective novelists were influenced by the murder, there's been a lot of Watson studies. People say he wrote a lot in prison, but no London magazines were interested in publishing a murderer's tales of the man he killed. Or at least, that's the story."

"I can't believe that," John said. " _Someone_ would've published it, just for the scandal."

"There's claims that Holmes' family suppressed publication." Sally glanced at Sherlock again.

Sherlock sniffed. "Hardly. My ancestors would have been delighted by the fame, and the original Mycroft would have found suppression too much effort."

Sally's phone rang before she could reply. She looked at the number and frowned as she answered. "Donovan. Hell. Where? Yes, I'm close by—at Freak's, actually. Should I ask...."

"No," Sherlock said. "Tell Lestrade I'm still busy."

Sally made a rude gesture at him. "Never mind. Yeah, I'll ask him instead. Right. Bye." She looked at John. "The random corpse artists are at it again. Want to come and take notes, since Freak can't be arsed?"

He glanced at Sherlock, still absorbed in his experiment, then grabbed his jacket. "Let's go."

* * *

John regretted coming along as soon as he entered the alley and saw the seated corpse, or rather what was draped around the corpse's head. "Please tell me it's dead."

Anderson stopped humming that Duran Duran song. "No idea. You want to check its pulse? Go right ahead. I'll wait for the reptile specialists from the zoo to get here, thanks." He glanced from John to Sally, forehead creasing.

At least the snake wasn't moving. "Okay, please tell me it's not poisonous."

"No luck," Sally said. "It looks like the one that went missing last night. Malayan pit viper."

Right, today just kept getting better....oh, bloody hell. "All right, then. Please tell me I didn't just see its tail twitch."

"Don't be ridiculous," Anderson replied. "You're just—oh, God."

The snake's tail rippled.

John swallowed twice and ignored his plummeting stomach. _Snakes were a lot easier to take care of in Afghanistan._ And it was a good thing he'd left the gun at home, or he'd be explaining to Lestrade why he was firing an illegal weapon. "Got a long stick? Maybe a broom or mop? And a rope we can knot a loop in to catch it?"

Anderson, backing carefully away from the corpse, said, "Broom, yes. Rope, too thick for what you have in mind."

"String, then? Something?"

Anderson fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a set of headphones. "Cord on this long enough?"

"Let's try it." He knotted a noose; by the time he'd finished, Anderson had a push broom ready. John secured the noose to it, inhaled, and slowly extended the broom.

The snake attempted to strike but was still too uncoordinated to do more than lash the lower half of its body about; it slid off the dead man's head and landed in his lap. Breathe. Try again. Almost, almost, _there_.

The snake struggled, but the noose held it fast, at least for the moment. Christ, the thing was strong. "What've we got to put it in?"

"Dog crate?"

He clung to the broom handle. "It's a bloody snake, not a corgi; it'd escape out the air holes."

Pounding footsteps. "Here," Sally said, holding out a wide cardboard mailing tube, one end already open. "Only thing in the stationer's that was big enough. Get it in here before I find out I've got five hundred pencils charged to my debit card."

The snake was not enthused. Two minutes of struggle later, John finally dropped the snake into the tube and Sally slapped the lid on the open end, the headphones dangling out from underneath.

"Couldn't you find a way to get it out of the knot?" Anderson asked.

Oh, come on. "You want your headphones back? You talk to the pissed-off snake."

"Of course I want them back! I mean, what if the knot chokes it?"

"Not high on my list of concerns, sorry."

His knees and brain chose that moment to give out. _Snake snake snake God that was a snake poisonous snake snake snake._

"Here." Sally pressed a water bottle into his hand. "Nothing stronger on hand; this'll have to do."

"Thanks." He swallowed and realized he was sitting in the alley, on God only knew what kind of refuse. "I don't particularly care for snakes."

"Never would've guessed," Anderson said.

There was not the sneering tone that John would've expected, so he simply nodded and replied, "Anything interesting about this one? Other than the fetching headwear?" He made himself focus on the corpse. "And the grey dressing gown and red slippers?"

Anderson pointed. "Fireplace poker bent in half."

"Why is there a...."

"Don't ask me! Ask your damn flatmate, if he's so brilliant!"

A bustle at the alley opening heralded the arrival of the zoo staff; Sally took them the tube and came back a few minutes later with Anderson's headphones. "According to the experts, you were lucky you didn't break its neck lifting it this way."

"That so?" John said. "And did you tell them to fuck off?" He inhaled. "Sorry. I think I'd better go home."

"I told them if they were that worried about the snake they should have found a faster way to get here. Need me to call you a cab?" 

"No, it's not that far. Thanks, though."

He waved to Lestrade, arguing with one of the zoo staff, and started for Baker Street. By the time he arrived, his breathing had steadied.

He opened the outside door in time to hear Sherlock shout, "I said 'narrower'; I did not say 'so narrow as to look like a short pencil was taped to his face'!"

A strange man's voice. "Look, isn't one of these sketches close enough?"

"I am not an ordinary witness. I have a more than adequate visual memory, and that picture is _wrong_. Try again, and this time use a little common sense."

"I've been on a bloody plane all night. You want common sense? You let me go home and sleep first."

John entered the flat. "Hi. Am I interrupting anything?"

Sherlock and the other man sat at the table, a small section cleared to hold drawing paper. "John, be quiet."

The man looked up. "This the famous Dr. Watson? I'm Fred Steele. Your blog is hilarious; everyone in forensics reads it."

Sherlock glared at them both. "Less talk, more illustration."

"Right," John said. "I suppose you don't want to hear about the snake, then."

"Not right now. No, no, I told you, that ear is _wrong_! He's a human, not a terrier."

John left them to whatever they were doing, found Sally's book, and settled in his chair to read.

The essays proved to be quite interesting. Chesterton's statement: "I do not believe Dr. Watson innocent because he was incapable of committing such a crime; he surely was capable of murder. I believe him innocent because he was incapable of lying about it." Sayers' riposte: "A man who cannot remember the location of his own war wound is hardly a reliable witness." A familiar Kipling poem—that was about Dr. Watson? He was never going to read "Be a man as Watson was" the same way again.

Sherlock's voice intruded briefly. "Oh, for God's sake, I said high forehead; I did not say macrocephalic."

Carr's essay "The Locked Room Outdoors" looked at ways the Reichenbach site might have been doctored, if one assumed Watson had told the truth; unfortunately, most of his suggestions involved mountaineering equipment that would have presumably left far more evidence at the scene, though he admitted that someone could have tried to climb the cliff face bare-handed. Orczy was far less interesting, except for the bit where she mentioned meeting Watson's widow at a party in early 1895.

"John!"

He looked up. Sherlock held a drawing of a narrow-faced man, balding, clean-shaven. "Congratulations," John said. He glanced at Fred, putting away his materials. "How much are you getting paid for this?"

"I no longer owe him a favour. Thank God. Nice to meet you; stop by next time you're at the Yard."

As Fred left, Sherlock said, "Do you recognize him?"

"No. Should I?"

"He's the man I saw. The one who really killed my cousin." 

John grinned. "That would explain why I don't recognize him, then, since no one knows he exists."

"If you were Watson in a former life, you might have known him."

"I still don't think I was Watson. I wouldn't have taken seven years to figure out that Holmes was actually a slob with bizarre habits."

Sherlock shook his head. "He was trying to make Holmes more sympathetic in the first book. And we don't have time for that. You really don't recognize him?"

"Nope. Do you?"

"No. Not yet. What are you so happy about?"

He _felt_ happy. More than that, he felt _smug_. And suddenly he was able to articulate why. "I'm happy because we don't recognize him."

 _There_ was a classic Sherlock glare. "That makes no sense."

"He killed Sherlock Holmes, one of the greatest detectives of the era...."

" _The_ greatest."

"...and today, he's so obscure that even you don't know who he is. He's not even remembered for what he did. He's completely forgotten. That's the ultimate retribution."

Sherlock looked puzzled. "Are you saying you don't want me to find out who he was?"

"Oh, no. I'm just finding it oddly fitting."

"Mawkish sentiment. Was it another of the posed bodies, then?"

Five months of living with Sherlock had accustomed him to whiplash subject changes. John described the snake and the corpse; Sherlock said, "How quickly did the snake recover consciousness?"

"I have no idea; I wasn't exactly staring at a watch."

Sherlock paced around the room. "Useless. The one time there is an actual clue, and you don't even notice it."

That stung. "Fine, what did I miss?"

"The snake! If you had a timetable for its recovery from anesthesia, you could estimate what dose it was initially given, how long it was unconscious, and from that, when it was placed."

"I'm not sure it works that precisely...."

"It would be more data than we have!"

"Yeah, but you know what? You're not working on that case right now. So it doesn't matter how badly I botched it. And I'm going for a walk."

The walk turned into a lunch, another walk, a call to Mike Stamford, an evening in the pub. By the time John returned home, Sherlock had already retired to his room. Fine.

John dozed off over his book and woke a couple hours later to the cry from downstairs. Damn, and Sherlock had been doing so much better....

Remembering Sherlock's admonition about not hovering, he sat up in bed and listened. Footsteps. Pacing, pause, pacing. And then the scraping of the violin being tuned. God, not again. And he still hadn't replaced his earplugs since Sherlock had used them in that experiment on dissolving foam.

But instead of the usual atonal screeches and pluckings, to John's surprise, Sherlock began to play actual music.

It was something classical-sounding and vaguely familiar. Whatever it was, it was beautiful, and heartbreaking. He lay back down and listened; eventually, he fell asleep again.

* * *

Last night, the dream had been different. Sherlock had been kneeling at the cliff's edge, looking into the chasm, but this time there were two broken bodies: the man from his vision, and John, who looked up at him and said, "It's too late."

Sherlock had sat up the rest of the night with his violin. He usually preferred composers from the Baroque and Classical eras, but on occasion the only music that could soothe his brain was Mendelssohn's "Songs without Words". When he finished the last movement, he set the bow down, cradled the instrument in his lap, and watched the nighttime traffic down Baker Street until John awoke and it was time to leave for Jim's.

As soon as they were settled in Jim's office, Sherlock pulled out the drawing. "Last week I saw the man who killed Holmes at Reichenbach, this man. Today I want to focus on him."

Jim's eyes widened, and Sherlock didn't miss his sudden start.

 _Interesting._ "All right," Sherlock said, "who is he?"

Jim schooled his face back into calm neutrality. "What makes you think I recognize him?"

"Oh, for God's sake. You are normally uncommonly intelligent; don't start acting like an idiot now."

"I really...."

He was not going to tolerate this. "Do not even think of lying to me. You want my trust? Do. Not. Lie. I _will_ know it. You aren't that good an actor."

"Oh, you might be surprised." Jim rose. "It's just...well, let me show you."

He left the room for a few minutes and returned with a framed photograph: three women sitting on a couch, two men standing behind them, all in clothing suggesting the late 1880s. The shorter man on the left looked very much like Jim, certainly the same rounded face and large eyes, while the tall thin man on the right....

"Christ," John said. "Dead spit, isn't he?"

Yes! "Who is he?" Sherlock asked again.

Jim tapped the round-faced man first. "This is my great-grandfather, Colonel James Moriarty." Then the other man, whose face stared at them from photograph and from sketch. "And this is his older brother, Professor James Moriarty."

"Why are they both named James?" John asked.

"I have no idea. They had four more brothers named James that died in childhood." Jim shrugged. "My family's a bit odd. Anyway, the Professor is the one Holmes accused of masterminding a criminal empire."

"And he's the one who killed Holmes." Sherlock couldn't contain himself any longer; he jumped out of his chair and spun around. Two, three times; there, that was enough of a jolt to his vestibular system that his brain wouldn't explode with glee. He laughed. "That's him, that's the man whom I saw. Brilliant! Now we simply have to find real proof."

"Er, Sherlock," John said, "you do realize this is Jim's relative you're defaming?"

Jim shook his head and smiled suddenly. "It's fine. It's...it's incredible. You really did see him." He picked up the drawing and chuckled. ( _Flushed face, increased respiration, right facial muscles moving—he wasn't lying; he was genuinely delighted._ ) "So that's what happened to him. You know, the family story always was that he died in an accident while holidaying on the Continent."

"The story in mine was that he slipped from the grasp of Scotland Yard, left the country, and was never seen again."

"Consistent, aren't they?" Jim set the drawing down by the photo. "Perhaps Dr. Watson's story of the strange man is true after all. This...I'm sorry, but this really is the most amazing thing ever. Give me a moment to get the tea, and then we'll start the session properly."

The next three hours were utter tedium interspersed with increasing headaches.

Whether it was the excitement or something else, Sherlock could not enter the hypnotic trance for more than a few seconds. Even the routine cup of tea did nothing to calm him. _Come on,_ he told himself, forcing his breathing to slow. _This is ridiculous._

And when at last he did properly enter the trance, did finally fall past the smudge of agony into his other life, it was not to Reichenbach, but to Baker Street, to Holmes and Watson staring into the fireplace, their visitor having just departed.

"Holmes has recently solved the mystery of a man's murder," he said, "by proving that he never died at all. But they have now been informed that the man was killed while fleeing England." He floated between their chairs, again observing.

After a long silence, Watson said pensively, "You really believe there is more to this than a band of American criminals seeking vengeance."

"The signs are there, in this case and in others." Holmes looked up. "You are sceptical, Watson."

"My dear Holmes, I do not like to doubt your perceptions, but are you certain that he even exists?"

"As certain as I am that the sun still exists at night, from the light it casts on the moon."

Watson chuckled. "You _have_ learned some astronomy!"

"Astonishing, is it not? Perhaps I may yet gain some facility in practical gardening." Holmes emptied and refilled his pipe, then continued. "Just as you might recognize a painter from his brush-strokes or a composer from his melodic style, I see the workings of a greater mind, in the shadows cast on this case and in others. A mind so subtle and ingenious, with such power at his disposal.... Can any man stand against him? Mr. Douglas could not, he who brought down a gang of sixty through his own wit and nerve." Holmes smiled wryly. "We have, my dear Watson, a problem worthy of a man's whole brain and being, an adversary that will test us in both mind and strength before he is done. It will take all my skill simply to identify him, let alone to defeat him."

"You are a match for him, surely!"

"I am not a modest man, as you never fail to delight in reminding me. Therefore, you must believe me when I say this: this man is my equal in intellect. He may yet prove my superior. Mr. Douglas was neither a careless man nor a fool, and yet this!" Holmes held up the cryptic telegram. "I believe that I can find this master of criminals, this Napoleon of crime. I believe that I will indeed bring him to justice. But it will take time, so much time." 

The lilting voice sounded regretful. "And on that note...." Four snaps.

"I'm sorry," Jim said as Sherlock blinked, "but I have an afternoon appointment, so I'm afraid we'll have to end for today."

Damn. "Why was it so hard for me to enter the trance?"

Jim shrugged. "You'd be better able to answer than I; you know what stressors are affecting your mind." He paused. "I do have a suggestion, though. We've set the four snaps as a trigger to leave the hypnotic state. Would you be willing to set a trigger to _enter_ it?"

"You can't be serious," John said.

Jim shrugged. "I've found it makes the process of entering the state faster and more reliable, which means we would be able to work longer."

"What, and then he's crossing the street and someone snaps their fingers, and suddenly he's hypnotised and stands there until a car hits him?"

Sometimes John was overly dramatic. Sherlock said, "I hardly think that Jim is suggesting something so simple."

"I am not. And despite what bad films might tell you, hypnosis doesn't work that way. I like to use a nonsense phrase followed by counting backwards from three—that would ensure you won't hear it accidentally, so your mind will associate it only with these sessions."

Easy, then. "Secant phenol metacarpal."

"What?" John said.

"Hardly a phrase you'll hear every day."

"Excellent," Jim said. "We'll work on setting that, and within a few sessions it should be effective. Shall we try again next Tuesday?"

John was clearly annoyed, but was largely concealing it. "I have to work that day; could we do Monday or Wednesday instead?"

Sherlock couldn't help asking the question. "Is this appointment for you or for me?"

"Let's do Wednesday morning at nine, then," Jim said calmly. 

When they left Jim's office, an old woman was closing the front door behind her. Ah, Jim's mother. She looked over at them. "Good afternoon, Dr. Watson, Mr. Holmes."

Process of elimination, since she had met John. Trivial. He would show her what proper deduction looked like. "You've just returned from a shopping trip—mostly groceries, but you went to a store selling used compact discs, though you didn't find anything you wanted."

"Correct so far." Her tone was guarded.

"You're a pianist—not concert quality, but good enough for personal amusement. Your father was Irish and your mother English. You've travelled extensively around the world, spending significant time in northern India, Japan, Ecuador, and Czechoslovakia before the split; you live on family money, but you're skilled at travelling inexpensively. Moriarty is your maiden name, not your married name."

"Er, Sherlock...."

"John, don't interrupt. You met Jim's father in Japan; at forty-three, Jim's conception must have been even more of a surprise than unplanned pregnancies usually are. You returned to Ireland to give birth, named the baby after your grandfather, and stayed there for some years before taking up travel again, this time with Jim."

She held his gaze those two seconds longer than average that told him he had offended. "Anything else, Mr. Holmes?"

"Besides the pollen allergy, no."

"I will leave you to figure out your two errors, then. Good afternoon."

She walked up the stairs and closed the door, leaving the three of them standing.

"I'm sorry," John said to Jim. "We'd better go...."

"Oh, for God's sake, stop apologizing for me. Why are people always offended by the truth?" Sherlock paused. "And what were my errors? The piano is obvious from her hands, the countries from the decor in this foyer, her parentage from her voice...."

Jim's voice was unusually soft. "Can you not guess?"

"...the photo of your great-grandfather and his siblings makes it clear that she's also a Moriarty; she looks like the Professor and like one of their three sisters...."

"Correct. Moriarty is her maiden name. It's also her married name. Dad was her cousin."

Damn, there was always something. "But the photographs in the foyer make it obvious...."

"He was travelling in Asia at the same time. Look, I am aware of the actual order of events; I've seen their marriage license and my birth certificate, and believe me; I can add and subtract." Jim stepped forward and rose up on the balls of his feet to speak into Sherlock's face. "And this topic is closed. Leave my mother alone. I'll see you Wednesday."

Sherlock blinked. Well. "If you insist. Come along, John."

John didn't release his annoyance until they were back at Baker Street. "Triumphant again. Guaranteeing no conflict of interest by ensuring she'll never hire you. Well played." He was making tea, though, and had Sherlock's mug out as well as his.

"She'll still call if she really needs me."

John exhaled and shook his head. "Fair enough. If she calls, I will grant that she needs your help badly enough to overlook the fact that it comes with you attached." He brought the tea to the table and looked at the drawing. "That is amazing, though. Did the Professor ever show up in your nightmares before?"

"Never. My dreams didn't have a face, or when they did, it was always someone I knew." A teacher; a classmate; Mycroft. Usually Mycroft. "It is strange, though, that I never see Reichenbach as an observer. In my regressions, I'm always a participant."

"Really?" Now John looked mischievous. "So, what did your cousin think while he was fighting for his life? Clearly not 'please, God, let me live'."

"I never do pick up any thoughts." And that, Sherlock realized, had been bothering him since the first successful regression. "Physical sensations, yes. Emotions, absolutely. Thoughts? No. Curious. I would have expected my cousin's mind to be much more orderly, even while fighting for his life."

"Because you of course would always think rationally while someone's trying to kill you."

 _The texture of a black ribbon lotus against his tongue._ "I have experienced moments of danger. I did not respond in such an upset manner. Perhaps that's what ultimately killed him, giving in to his base emotions at the last."

John looked like he wanted to say more, but he only pursed his lips and shook his head. "It's too hot for a debate. Are you eating today?"

"It's too hot for food. And I have research to do." A face and a name; now to find out about Professor Moriarty's life.


	9. 29 June - 7 July

For the sixth time that day, John diagnosed heat exhaustion and prescribed rest and fluids. _This is all I'm good for,_ he thought as his last patient left. _I'm certainly rubbish at detection._

Sunday morning there had been a dead man with an amputated thumb outside Paddington Station; Monday a dead woman in a wedding dress on the banks of the Serpentine. Sherlock would surely have found _something_ interesting about the grease stains on the man's trousers and the clearly counterfeit £50 note in his hand, or drawn conclusions from the message "You will see me when all is ready. Come at once. F.H.M." tucked into the woman's glove. Sherlock, however, had spent Sunday surrounded by books and Monday at three different libraries; his only response to John's summary of the scenes had been to request the pen that was a centimetre out of reach.

A knock on the door, and Sarah entered. "Courier service," she said, handing him a book. "I didn't know your biography had already been written."

"What?" He read the cover. _Dr. Watson of Baker Street,_ by William S. Baring-Gould. Christ. "Where did this come from?"

"Sally Donovan."

"She came here just to drop off a book?"

"No, she came here to pick up a DVD; she missed our _Lord Peter_ night because she had to work. Couldn't go any longer without her Cumberbunter fix." She grinned, then looked thoughtfully at John. "So, are you two...never mind, none of my business."

He blinked. "No. We're...." Friends? Temporary allies? Unofficial colleagues? "We're not dating. She's just lending me some books for one of Sherlock's projects."

"Well, try not to get her kidnapped. I'd miss the rants. You haven't seen true drama until you've seen a detective sergeant, a solicitor, and an accountant swearing at the telly in three-part harmony. Admittedly, four-part when the dodgy medical scenes start." She stepped back. "Next week, then?"

"If I don't get kidnapped first." John winked and gathered his papers.

He had been waiting at the bus stop for a few minutes, flipping through the book, when someone called, "John!"

He turned to see a completely unfamiliar middle-aged man, scruffily dressed and unshaven. "Er, hi. Have we met?"

"No, but you're Sherlock's common-law flatmate. Tell him that I saw a man mucking about with a CCTV camera near Paddington Station early Sunday morning—bit after two, must have been. Little bloke, maybe your height; he was wearing a John Lennon rubber mask."

 _I'm not little...forget it._ "Thanks, I'll let him know." The man must be one of Sherlock's homeless network, which meant he really should be paid; John fumbled for his wallet. "I only have a five-pound note...."

The man stepped back. "No! Don't touch it!"

"What?" 

"The beetles will bite you, and you'll be sick for weeks. Sherlock'll pay me later—he knows where to find me."

John watched the man walk away. _He may know Sherlock, but he doesn't sound like a reliable witness._

Nonetheless, when he got home, he passed on the message to Sherlock, who was stretched on the couch in Thinking Pose 2, or "modelling for the sarcophagus carver".

Sherlock's response was dismissive. "Obviously the cameras have been interfered with. Otherwise even the police would have found a suspect."

John resisted the temptation to say _pity they don't have a consulting detective helping them, then_ , and instead asked, "How about you? Anything interesting?"

"Very. I am more and more impressed with Professor Moriarty."

"Oh, is there a lot of information on him?"

"Quite the opposite. His early life is a cipher. He held a university chair for some years, but resigned it abruptly; the data suggests he may have been compelled to resign, but why is anyone's guess. He lived in London for a number of years, but there is no indication of how he earned his living." Sherlock bent his knees into Thinking Pose 4 and continued, "I reread what remains from the trials of his gang. His people were admirable for their loyalty. Not one, not even those who knew they faced the gallows, ever revealed his name. He must have been a person of immense charisma as well as genius, to inspire such feeling."

"And we're going to prove him guilty how?"

Sherlock barely shook his head. "I have no idea. But I have one advantage no one else in the past 119 years has had: I was an eyewitness." He rolled to his feet and went to rummage in a kitchen cabinet, emerging with a large handful of coins and a pocket torch. "I have a debt to pay. Don't wait up for me; I'll meet you at Jim's tomorrow morning."

Not yet. "Sherlock."

"What?" Sherlock actually paused halfway down the stairs.

"Did you sleep this afternoon?"

"What have I said about hovering?" When John refused to look away, Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Eleven to three. It'll hold me through tomorrow."

A series of observations suddenly crystalized. "Have you noticed—of course you've noticed, never mind."

"Noticed what?" Sherlock came back up the stairs.

"Never mind." It was a stupid thought.

"I am now convinced of the existence of reincarnation, but I still draw the line at telepathy. Tell me."

John steeled himself for the mockery. "Have you noticed that every time one of these posed bodies turns up, you start having nightmares again? And once you've had a session with Jim, they stop, but as soon as there's another body, they come back."

"Ridicu...oh. Oh. That _is_ interesting." Sherlock stood for a minute, then raced back down the stairs. "Nine a.m.; don't forget!" he called over his shoulder. The front door closed, then opened again. "And don't stay up all night reading; the biography isn't _that_ good."

 _Wanker,_ John thought affectionately as he set the book on his chair.

* * *

"No sign of recent vandalism," Sherlock said. "Which is the curious thing."

There was no answer. _Idiot,_ he thought. Dennis had shown him the camera and then left on his own business; John was at home. There was no audience, aside from whatever subordinate of Mycroft's might be watching the feed.

He balanced on the edge of the roof and examined the camera and mounting again. Installation eight months ago, and maintenance four, likely related to the paint blotch on the roof. Other than that, no sign of interference, so why had the camera not picked up anything?

Wait, _there_.

Torch in one hand, magnifier in the other, brace hip against the chimney. Yes. _There_. The tiniest scratches on the casing, on at least two...no, on all four sides. Something had been slipped onto the camera—a filter, perhaps? Or something more ingenious?

He moved back from the edge, weighed the effort needed to hack into the camera feed, and reluctantly took out his phone and texted. *Need 27 June feed from CCTV camera 286-B3, 1:30 to 3:00 a.m. SH*

The response was near-immediate. *You know what I need. MH*

*Dental work, clearly; otherwise you'd have telephoned. SH*

*Odour of your breath last week suggests root canal. SH*

*Where did you find dentist at 2:00 a.m. anyway? SH*

*Only time that worked for both of us. If you assist me, I will assist you. MH*

*Busy. SH*

*Ditto. MH*

*Feed relevant to case. SH*

*Formula relevant to my work. MH*

*Never mind; will get feed the slow and boring way. SH*

There was no response, of course. Sherlock texted Lestrade. *Check feed from CCTV camera 286-B3. SH* 

*27 June, 1:30 to 3:00 a.m. SH*

*I need to see any glitches. SH*

*P.S. I am not working on this case. SH*

He put away his phone and leaned against the chimney—it was not precisely comfortable, but the texture of the bricks was intriguing. London stretched out around him, not quite sleeping. Mycroft had once made an inane metaphor about the city as a battlefield; perhaps from the vantage point of Whitehall it was. To Sherlock it was an organism, a brilliant life form that humoured his efforts to dissect it, fed him in return for symbiotic aid, allowed him to become part of its immune system.

He had not lied to Lestrade. He was not actively investigating the mysterious bodies, not while he was seeking the evidence to prove how his cousin had died. But since Dennis had sent him that message, it would have been foolish to ignore it. And the pieces of the puzzle refused to be archived to the cellar of his mind.

The puzzle—if he ever described it to John, perhaps he would use that metaphor, trite as it was; John had understood the mind palace, and would certainly understand a jigsaw puzzle as well. But those flat pieces of wood or cardboard were a poor comparison to the intricate three-dimensional shapes, each with its own colours and textures, shapes that he shuffled in his mind, temporarily grouped together, slotted and tested until they interlocked, until they revealed the negative space of the missing pieces. And sometimes those missing pieces were obvious, so obvious that he knew exactly what to look for, much to the astonishment of John or Lestrade (why could they never put together the same pieces he held?), and sometimes there was too big a gap to fill with any one fact. And sometimes he found that he had been forcing a piece where it did not fit, and until he moved it to its proper place, there would be no solution.

In the case of the posed bodies, there were so many pieces missing that he could not see where the existing facts belonged. In the case of his cousin, the spaces were taking shape, at least, and soon he would find more pieces. In the case of himself....

John was right. There was a correlation between the mysterious bodies and the nightmares, between Jim's sessions and the improved sleep—excessive sleep, for a couple of weeks, but now it seemed to be evening out. And that was the only fact he had. His cousin might have argued that to be sufficient, like inferring the possibility of an ocean or waterfall from a single drop of water, but Sherlock was inclined in this case to agree with Watson's verdict of "ineffable twaddle"—one could infer many possibilities from a given fact, but that said nothing about which possibility might be the truth.

He would simply have to collect more facts.

* * *

At five minutes to nine, Sherlock arrived at Jim's to find John, as always, waiting patiently. Fortunately, Jim's mother wasn't inside; Sherlock felt an irrational aversion towards seeing her, not that it would be any great matter to say some apologetic words if she came in. And Jim already seemed to have forgotten; he greeted them with his usual good cheer, brought tea (which John still refused; perhaps still a wise idea, but at some point it would become ridiculous), and said, "Shall we start, then?"

Today the hypnotic state was easier to reach; as soon as Sherlock was in a trance, Jim said, "This is your trigger phrase: secant phenol metacarpal, three two one. When you hear this phrase, you'll enter the hypnotic state quickly and easily. I won't use it on you yet; we'll take a few more sessions to be sure your mind has accepted it. But then it will work, and we will make so much more progress than before. Remember: secant phenol metacarpal, three two one."

He repeated the phrase several times; Sherlock listened and accepted it. _When I hear this, it is time to enter this state._

At last, the gentle voice said, "We'll work on that more later, but for now, let's go back to your former life. Watch, observe, and tell us...oh, tell us about another of Holmes' cases."

The leap across darkness and through pain, the landing in darkness again; this time four men waited. "A bank robbery. An ingenious plan; the robbers have dug a tunnel from a pawnshop behind the bank into the vaults. But Holmes has seen through their plan and is waiting, with Watson and the bank manager and a police officer."

The other voice, the warm one. "They spend a lot of time waiting in the dark, don't they?"

"Yes. But their wait will be rewarded."

Silence, long silence, the sound of Holmes' breath, of Watson's, of the other two men's. At last, a line of light, a hand reaching up. Watson leapt from his crouch in spite of his stiff leg; Holmes brought down a crop upon the hand; and suddenly the would-be robber was a prisoner, the bank's gold secure from theft.

Four snaps.

Sherlock blinked. "Was there something wrong?"

"Not at all," Jim said. "But you must have been relating that case in real time; you've been in this trance for three hours."

 _How_ long? He looked at his phone; indeed, Jim was correct. John looked as stiff as Watson had, and even Jim seemed a little tired. "Sufficient for today, then. How soon can you meet again?"

"Does Saturday morning work for you?"

And that brought up one fact that Sherlock was missing; fortunately, it would be easy to hunt for it. "Perfectly. Come along, John."

Outside, he let John get into the cab first, started to get in himself, and then said, "Damn, I forgot that I have to meet with someone." He got back out of the cab and leaned down. "Go on home; I'll be back as soon as I can."

"I don't mind if we drop you off first...." John began.

"It's not far from here." Sherlock closed the door and waved the cab away, then turned and walked in the opposite direction.

Once the cab was out of sight, he returned to the house and knocked on the door.

Jim opened it. "Forget something?"

"No. Do you have a few minutes?"

Jim pursed his lips, then smiled. "Fifteen, yes. Forty-five, no."

"Five should suffice. Why are you really interested in me?"

Refreshingly, Jim neither pretended stupidity nor demonstrated it. "This is a conversation we should have in my office, not in the hall." He opened the door and gestured for Sherlock to enter. "More tea?"

"Not right now." Sherlock planted himself on the couch in John's usual spot. "Over the past month you have spent more than twenty hours guiding me through hypnosis. That's twenty hours you could have spent with paying clients—and while I am fascinated by this process, I am not sufficiently so to come up with your undoubtedly appropriate fees. What are you getting out of this?"

Jim looked down coquettishly. "Would you believe that it's my deep and abiding love for you, and that I do this because it's the only way I can be close to you?"

A fine acting job, but.... "No, I would not. It's obvious that you find me attractive, but I believe your passions lie elsewhere. I've seen how you look at these drawings."

"It's a fair cop." Jim grinned. "IT is my job, and hypnotherapy is my vocation, but architecture? That's my passion."

"But I hardly think you are guiding me into past life regressions to check the architectural details of old buildings. So why _are_ you doing this?"

After a long pause, Jim said, "You'll think this sounds ridiculous."

"Probably. Most people's logic does. So?"

"I want Great-Uncle James to be remembered."

"Great-great uncle...."

"You call yours 'cousin' instead of 'first cousin four times removed'; I can abbreviate too." Jim leaned against the desk. "No one's ever heard of him. Oh, a handful of scholars and compulsive Watsonians know his name from the court records, but the family did a good job of covering that up. Too good a job. You've been trying to find out more about him, haven't you? And without much luck?"

Sherlock thought of the handful of emails from libraries and archives, all negative. "Correct."

"I've searched for years myself. Nothing. Then I heard about your work, and Molly told me more about you. Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective. And I thought, was it just coincidence or inspiration from family history? Or were you really Sherlock Holmes reborn?"

He felt vaguely annoyed. "Was Molly the one who told you about the nightmares?"

"She didn't need to. The first two times I met you, I saw you were short on sleep. The cause was a guess, but a reasonable one. The cause behind the cause? Pure luck." Jim looked up and held Sherlock's gaze. "You were there. You can find information that'll help me prove what Professor Moriarty did."

"You _want_ the world to know that your great-great uncle was a criminal mastermind, responsible for countless crimes in London and around the world."

Jim shrugged. "If that's what he was. I'm not afraid of the truth. So. Do you believe me?"

Pupils, respiration, posture.... "What you've told me is true. But it's not the whole truth, is it?"

Now Jim grinned. "I have to keep a few secrets. Otherwise you'd get bored. Wouldn't do for me to be an open book like your boyfriend."

"Flatmate."

"Let's compromise. Partner. He was Watson in a previous life, wasn't he?"

"I suspect so." John might be convinced that he wasn't, but it was an elegant and logical explanation for how quickly he had become a fixture in Sherlock's life.

"We'll have to talk him into regressing sometime, just to see." Jim straightened. "And we're done for today. I'll see you Saturday, then?"

"Of course."

It did not fill in the puzzle, Sherlock thought as he hailed a cab, but it was at least more data.

* * *

John spread out the crime scene photos—the early ones Sherlock had purloined from the Met; the later ones from his own phone—and looked again to see if he could find a pattern. Not that it was likely; if Sherlock couldn't, how could he?

There had been one more body last Thursday, this one a man dangling halfway out a window in a house in Streatham. The homeowners had been horrified to discover him and claimed to know nothing about him; nor had they known anything about the broken-edged piece of gold set with three gems that had been in his pocket. The pathologists had reported evidence of late-stage pancreatic cancer and no signs of poison, making yet another unexplained, unidentified body.

Saturday and Monday had seen two more sessions at Jim's, one with little success and one that resulted in a fascinating story, the case that of a missing document and the solution hanging on a pair of stains showing that a carpet had been rotated.

And now it was Wednesday, and John had just spent one of the most boring days he'd ever had at the surgery. He'd finished Sally's books, and he had managed to tolerate today's news programmes and memorial retrospectives for twenty minutes before shutting off the telly, and Sherlock was upstairs filling the bathtub with blue dye for an experiment, which meant no shower tonight unless John used Mrs. Hudson's again. Not that he particularly wanted to go out either; Harry had phoned and offered to buy dinner—"it's not every day that my baby brother turns forty"—but he had excused himself.

There was a knock at the street door; a minute later, Mrs. Hudson called up, "Sherlock? John's young lady's here."

"Just friends," Sally replied as she entered the room; her tone suggested she'd heard the suggestion before. She handed him a shopping bag. "Happy birthday."

"How did you know?" John asked as he opened the bag. "I didn't tell anyone."

She snorted. "You think the boss didn't run a background check on you when you started showing up with the freak? Anyway, I saw this and knew you needed it, and we all chipped in to buy it."

It was a black T-shirt that said _Support Your Local Consulting Detective: Die Strangely_.

_This should not be funny. I should not be laughing._

"It's brilliant," he said when he was finally able to breathe again. "I have no idea where I'd wear it, but it's brilliant. Thank you."

"You're welcome." She stepped back. "I won't stay long, but I had to get out of the Yard for a bit."

"Stay for some tea," John suggested. "And I finished your books; let me get those for you."

"Too hot, but thanks." She did, however, sit down at the table. "At least you don't share the original Watson's birthday. That'd be too strange. How's Freak coming with his project? Fred Steele said something about some drawings."

John found the drawing of Professor Moriarty and showed it to her. "Sherlock thinks this man was involved somehow."

"Huh. Where did he find his description?"

He was not about to answer that question. "Some papers somewhere, I think."

"That gave enough detail to do a drawing? That's mad." Sally shook her head. "Still, be interesting to see what he comes up with. No confessing letters yet, I take it? No mysterious boxes found in the walls that reveal Holmes' darkest secrets?"

Now, that was an interesting question. John looked around the room. "I hadn't thought of that. How long do you think it'd take to search this flat for a secret compartment? Have you ever had to do that?"

"Once. Took bloody forever, too. I know a faster way." She raised her voice. "Oi, Freak!"

"Busy!" Sherlock replied from the bathroom.

This time, John couldn't contain the annoyance. "Do you have to call him that?"

"Why not? He doesn't care."

"He does; he's just never going to let you know it."

"Him? Having feelings? Please." She paused, obviously reading John's expression. "It bothers _you_."

"Yeah. It does."

"So what do you suggest as an alternative?"

"'Sherlock' works for me."

She grimaced. "Yeah. He already calls me 'Sally' when everyone else on the team gets the courtesy of a surname if not their title. I'm not giving him the satisfaction of first-name basis. And before you suggest it, 'Holmes' has always been the 19th century one to me."

"S.H.? Man in the Fancy Coat? Dear Little Friend?"

"Ha! Bet he hasn't read the Narnia books." Sally grinned. "I have it. C.D.F. Consulting Detective...well, just pretend it's 'friend'. Decent compromise?"

He smiled. "Satisfactory."

Sherlock chose that moment to come in. "It cannot be correct...."

Sally said, "Hey, C.D.F., where are the secret hiding places in this flat?" Before Sherlock could respond, she added, "And don't tell me where the one is where you keep your stash. If you'd found a mysterious manuscript by the original Holmes there, you'd have said something by now, right?"

"If I had found anything relating to my cousin, I'd have added it to my collection." He paused. "There _is_ one that I haven't bothered to check, but I was saving it for a boring day."

"Which one?" John wondered. "You've already passed at least a month of boring days without checking it."

"Never seemed like the right time." Sherlock went back to the kitchen and returned with a stepladder and bucket of tools. He set up the ladder by the couch and was soon cutting through the wallpaper and chipping at plaster.

Oh, God. "Mrs. Hudson is really going to evict us this time."

Sally moved closer to John. "Are those _bullet holes_ in that smiley face?"

Sherlock snorted, clearing more plaster. "And you call yourself a police officer."

"Botched picture hanging," John said calmly. There was definitely something emerging under Sherlock's excavation.

"Whatever you say." Sally leaned forward. "Okay, how did you know that was there? Change in echo when you thumped on the wall?"

"That, and the plaster is smoother here than in other parts of the wall. Someone went to an extra effort to make this unobtrusive."

"You can tell that through the wallpaper?"

"Yes." Sherlock didn't elaborate as he switched to a smaller pick.

A few minutes later, he climbed down, a rusted metal box in hand. "Careful," John said. "You remember what happened with that box at Jim's."

"I am actually capable of learning from error, unlike most people." Sherlock dug out a pair of heavy leather gloves from under a chair. "It doesn't appear to be locked....ah."

Inside the box was only a small key, the bow molded in the shape of a lantern. "Well," John said, "that's a bit anticlimactic."

Sherlock frowned. "It must have some importance, or why would someone have bothered to store it? But clearly it's not something they'd needed to use regularly or in a hurry, so not for a house or strongbox. Unless it was a spare." He studied the key. "I've seen something like this before, but where?"

"Worth trying to get prints off it?" Sally asked. "Not that we have the original Holmes' to compare with—or do we?"

Sherlock gave Sally a puzzled look, the look that meant _you have unaccountably come up with an intelligent thought; do I know you?_ "Unfortunately, we don't. Though occasionally prints have been known to survive many years; it would be interesting to try....." He went to the kitchen, returned with his fingerprinting kit, and began dusting.

Mrs. Hudson chose that minute to come in with the tea tray. "Biscuits, anyone? Just this once, since you have a guest... oh, Sherlock, there isn't much of your deposit left for that to come out of."

Sherlock ignored her, photographing the key and box. John said, "We're just looking for buried treasure."

Suddenly, Sherlock frowned and set down the camera. "Oh. It's not his."

"How do you know?" John asked.

"I remember where I've seen this." He shoved the box over to John. "Here. Sell it to a gullible Victoriana collector on eBay. It's no use to us."

John took the key and, on a whim, put it on his keyring instead.

"Where's it from?" Sally asked. "It does look familiar."

Sherlock packed away the fingerprinting equipment and ignored her. 

Mrs. Hudson attempted to smooth over the moment. "It's amazing how many secret niches there are in this building, isn't it?"

To his surprise, John made the jump before Sherlock did. "Have you ever found any down in your rooms?"

"Oh, yes. There's a loose panel in the bedroom floor. I found two bottles and a little case with a note."

Sherlock's head jerked around. "A note? What did you do with it?"

"I left it there; it seemed a shame to move it after so many years. I did find a nice acid-free envelope to put it in first, though."

Immediately Sherlock was bounding down the stairs; Sally stepped back and gestured for Mrs. Hudson to go next.

John had been in Mrs. Hudson's flat before, of course, but not in her bedroom. He was, therefore, not prepared for the terrarium. "Christ, are those tarantulas?"

"Hadn't you met Corbett and Barker before? They're really quite friendly. So much less trouble than dogs or cats. Now, if one of you could move them over to the bedside table—oh, thank you, Detective Sergeant. The floorboard's under this chest."

In the hollow under the board lay two stoppered glass bottles, one green and one brown; a rectangular box that might have been red before the mildew; and the envelope. Sherlock pulled out the note and gazed at it, his expression nearly reverent. "That's his handwriting."

The bottles, the box, were simultaneously fascinating and repellent. John picked up the box and opened it, already certain of what he'd find. Indeed, inside on a red velvet lining lay a syringe.

"God, that's an antique," Sally said, looking over John's shoulder. "Ought to be in a museum, not rotting under here. What's in those bottles?"

Sherlock held out the letter. "Read this."

> _My dear Mrs. Turner—_  
> 

"Mrs. Turner? I thought...." John began.

"Hudson was a pseudonym. No relation to our hostess."

> _When I asked you to hide these items, I meant that you should make them difficult to find. You really must endeavour to find a better hiding place if you wish to keep them away from my notice; it took me only a few minutes of searching to find this. But I give you my word that I have not touched them; my willpower has not grown so weak as that. The Doctor will never know that I have finally done as he wished, now that he is no longer here to appreciate the sacrifice. I remain, etc., S. Holmes_  
> 

Sally read over John's shoulder. "No date, but from the text it must have been written after Dr. Watson's marriage. So, 1890?" She paused. "What _is_ in those bottles?"

"You've read _The Sign of Four_ ," Sherlock said, bending to pick up the bottles. "I wonder if they're still effective after so long."

"Wait," Sally said. "You mean...."

Oh, God. "No," John said. "Absolutely not. You are not injecting yourself with a 120-year-old solution of a Class A drug."

"I wasn't planning to inject myself with them, thank you."

"Or me, or a pigeon, or Anderson."

Sherlock's eyebrows lowered. "Morphine could only improve his temperament."

"Possession." Sally suddenly looked gleeful. "Possession of Class As. And I've got my warrant card."

"Please. Even you aren't that ignorant. You wouldn't be arresting me; you'd be arresting Mrs. Hudson."

"Not if I came back in twenty minutes after you've scarpered off to your kitchen with them."

"If you come back in twenty minutes, I'll have hidden them so well that you, Anderson, Lestrade, and a team of trained dogs with a map couldn't find them again."

John sighed and took the bottles from Sherlock. "How convenient that we have a police officer here. Sally, our landlady just happened to find a pair of antique bottles, one likely containing morphine and the other a seven-percent cocaine solution. Would you mind taking them to the Yard for proper disposal? We'd like the bottles back afterwards, please; they're family heirlooms."

"Of course they're heirlooms," Sherlock said, "and so are the contents."

"Tough."

"But the experiments! The chance to see how these chemicals change in solution over a century! Have you no respect for the scientific method?"

"Christ, Sherlock, just let Sally take them. And hush and go upstairs."

Sherlock froze, then said, "All right," as he spun and walked out.

John blinked. What was that about?

"Good job," Sally said, sounding impressed. "Can you do that next time he's being a git at a crime scene? If he ever deigns to show up at one again?"

"We'll see," John said. _That was too easy. What is Sherlock up to?_


	10. 8 July - 28 July

Over the next few days, John watched Sherlock—well, all right, he _always_ watched Sherlock, if only to know when he needed to duck or to grab the fire extinguisher, but now, he paid closer attention to Sherlock's behaviour.

Evidence was inconclusive. When Mrs. Hudson asked Sherlock to help her get a baking dish from a high shelf, Sherlock made a rude comment on the logic of storing frequently used items out of reach, but he also went downstairs with her, and returned forty minutes later with a piece of cake for John. Still, that was Mrs. Hudson, the one person John had ever seen get away with _hugging_ Sherlock. And really, it wasn't unheard of for Sherlock to help her—usually when he wanted to distract attention from his latest damage to the flat, granted, but John had spotted at least four occasions when there was no obvious ulterior motive.

When Lestrade called Sherlock on the 9th to tell him there was another mysterious body and ask him to come to the scene, Sherlock said "286-B3. Still waiting. Besides, it's too hot to go out," and hung up. John had ended up going himself, though Sherlock had a point about the heat. When he came home and described the body, Sherlock had called him useless because he couldn't tell at a glance whether the dead woman's bright red hair was natural or dyed, or whether the long cut-off braid was her own hair. Sherlock had also, unexpectedly, asked what Anderson had been humming, and then had been annoyed that it was "Devil with the Blue Dress" rather than something that indicated the cause of death. It had been irritating, but also blessedly normal.

However, the next Monday, Lestrade actually showed up at 221B. "It's not one of the posed bodies this time," he said. "Opera singer, murdered in her flat. But Donovan said you needed to see this one."

Sherlock didn't look up from his laptop. "Which means it's boring and pointless."

"Sherlock. Please come."

Sherlock stood. "Give me five minutes to dress."

As he slammed his bedroom door, Lestrade looked at John. "Okay, where's the catch?"

"No idea," John said, the sensation of _wrong_ creeping back up.

He felt better at the scene, the kitchen of a very nice flat, when Anderson said, "Oh, you finally decided to show up? Lovely. Now leave," and Sherlock simply responded, "Sleeping with someone in Dog Support now, I see," and examined the corpse. No question about cause of death, anyway, with that many stab wounds and the knife on the floor nearby. (Anderson: "You're not going to argue that it isn't the murder weapon, are you?"; Sherlock: "Don't be dull. Oh, an impossibility. Of course it's the murder weapon; even you should have noticed that.")

Finally, Sherlock stood and ripped his gloves off. "Why are we here? There is nothing at all unusual about this case."

Anderson shrugged. "Ask Donovan. She's the one who said you should come."

"Come on, John." Sherlock stalked into one of the bedrooms, where Sally was taking notes and talking to another member of the forensics team.

She held up a hand before Sherlock could shout at her. "Do you know what this address is?"

"Seeing as we arrived here, I would say yes. Case solved. Good-bye."

"Then you know who used to live here. In 1891."

Sherlock blinked. "Oh. _Oh._ "

"Yeah. I thought, seeing as we're here anyway, if you wanted to look around, this would be the time."

"How could I be such an idiot? Anderson's suppression field must be expanding. Is the cellar open? Never mind; I'll check. John, wait up here." And Sherlock was bounding out the door before John could react.

John moved out of the way to let a constable pass. "So, for those of us who haven't memorized the 1891 London city directory, who _did_ live here? Not Dr. Watson, I wouldn't think."

"No. Mycroft Holmes."

 _This_ had been the elder Holmes' flat? John whistled. "Nice location."

"Isn't it? And the light in here is amazing. I can see why he lived here for forty years; I wouldn't have wanted to move out. Here, let's get out of the way for a minute; there's something I needed to tell you."

They went into the second bedroom; a couple of constables were dusting the piano for fingerprints, but that was the only activity. Sally said, "I think I know where that key is from. Ever heard of the Diogenes Club?"

"No. Not really my area."

She snorted. "Yeah, mine neither. But it's mentioned in a lot of the books on Holmes and Watson, and that hand holding a lantern was their symbol."

He fumbled in his pockets until he found his keys. Yes, now that he looked more closely, those lines on the lantern's handle must represent fingers. "Why would this have been in the wall, then? Was it some weird ritual?"

"No idea. But there's two major traditions the club was supposed to have—might still have, for all I know. One was that no one was allowed to speak in the building; you went there, and you sat by yourself and ignored everyone." She grinned. "If I had the money to do it, I'd form a club like that. Strictly for women with stressful careers—police, doctors, schoolteachers, mothers, stockbrokers—someplace they can go and not be bothered by anyone. It'd be glorious."

John imagined what it'd be like to have fifteen minutes guaranteed free of interruption. "Can I get a membership in the Gentlemen's Auxilary?"

"Only if you can guarantee that C.D.F. will never cross the threshold."

"Ah, well, it was worth asking."

"Anyway, the other tradition—though current members deny it—is that somewhere in the club's original building, there's a room with a safety deposit box for each member; they're called the Honesty Boxes. Supposedly people would write down what they really thought and lock it up there."

"God, imagine what a mess it'd be if someone broke into them. Though most of it's probably whinging and moaning. Was Holmes or Watson a member, then?"

"Not that I know of. But Mycroft Holmes was one of the founders. And it seems to me that if anyone would have had information on the 19th century Sherlock Holmes, it'd be his brother." She shrugged. "Worth investigating, anyway.

It might be, at that, even though Sherlock had apparently dismissed the idea that the key could be at all useful. John looked around the room. "Think there's another secret hideaway in this flat?"

"Honestly? No. But you never know. And it'll be fun to watch C.D.F. hunt."

"I'm afraid you'll be deprived of that idle delight," Sherlock said as he entered the room. "The building was destroyed about thirty years ago and then rebuilt. If there was anything hidden here, it's long gone."

Amazing. "How did you find that out?" John asked.

"Cellar. The joists can't be older than that." Sherlock smirked. "Also the landlord prattling about how hard it was to rebuild to the dimensions and design of the original but still meet modern building codes."

"Damn," Sally said. "Sorry to waste your time, then. "

"No, it was actually...." Sherlock paused, then began again. "It was a good theory. An interesting theory. A wrong theory, but if you hadn't been in the cellar, you couldn't have known. And clearly you haven't been there, because otherwise you'd have the proof that the murderer was the victim's manager. At least, I hope the evidence would be obvious to you, but then, you're part of the police, so...."

"Stop," John said, as Sally's expression shifted from cautiously pleased to scornful. "Just say 'thanks for thinking of me', and let's go home."

Sherlock exhaled. "Thank you for thinking of me, Sally." He whirled and strode out.

Another prickle of _wrong_ , intensified when Sally said, "Did you always have that superpower of shutting him up? Because if you did, you've been holding out on us."

"Just my lucky day," John replied.

Footsteps in the living room, and Lestrade shouting, "Anderson, this is a crime scene, not a football game; stop chanting that." He entered the bedroom. "Sherlock didn't hold his cab for you, John; you're on your own."

John sighed. "Not the first time." And at least _that_ was normal.

Still, as he walked down the street, thinking about the past few days, he couldn't convince himself that everything was fine. But who would be a better judge than him of Sherlock's mental state....oh.

No. He was not that desperate yet.

* * *

To the accompaniment of rainfall, Sherlock reviewed the state of his researches into Professor Moriarty. He had inquiries out to six Swiss archives—he suspected that he'd need to go there and look for himself eventually, but first he would exhaust his remote options; Swiss officials tended to be worse than British ones when confronted with unauthorized access. He had made a trip up to Leeds on Tuesday; the university library held the original manuscript of the Professor's book _The Dynamics of an Asteroid_ , and after two hours with it Sherlock would recognize the man's handwriting anywhere, even if the mathematics was... well, he was certain that he _could_ understand it, given time, but why bother when there were so many more important things to learn? He'd examined tax records and deeds. He'd even found the Professor's will—bequests to three sisters that would have been quite respectable sums at the time, and the residue to his brother (the two men did, at least, have different middle names; Jim's family was not entirely mad).

There was one more source that he had been putting off requesting, but it was irrational to delay it any further. And since John had gone to see another posed body ( _found on the grounds of a riding school; crushed skull; small knife in one hand and red-and-black necktie in other— **what** was the pattern?_ ), he had plenty of time.

Sighing, Sherlock sent the text.

*Not willing to pay price for Strad, but what is price for two hours' access to less annoying Mycroft's papers? SH*

*None. You are the co-owner; you may see them when you like. MH*

*I'm the co-owner of the Strad too. And you can't be having dental work again already. SH*

*Tedious meeting; phone not feasible. MH*

*A handful of letters cannot be pawned. A violin can. MH*

*Oh, for God's sake. SH*

*I never pawned anything that belonged to *him*. SH*

*Nonetheless. MH*

*When will you believe I can look after myself? SH*

*When I see evidence of it. Dr. Watson seems a good influence on you, but it has only been five months. MH*

*Will not conclude long-term change from short-term data. MH*

*Changed my mind; don't want to see papers that badly. SH*

*Don't be childish. Have already arranged a cab, as you dislike the car. MH*

Sherlock swore at the phone and stomped down the stairs. 

When the cab dropped him at Mycroft's flat, he broke in through the back window rather than using his door key. The text *Still childish. MH* arrived less than a minute later; Sherlock ignored it and went to the bedroom that Mycroft had converted to a fully-fitted office. He started to pick the lock on the first beige filing cabinet, but at the text of *No. MH*, he rolled his eyes and turned to the four gray cabinets.

It had been several years since Sherlock had been through these papers, and his memory of the contents had faded. Mycroft Holmes the Elder had left a great deal of correspondence, saving countless letters both relevant and trivial. Sometimes a carbon copy of Mycroft's typed response was attached; sometimes he had merely made notes on the letters summarizing his response.

Sherlock indulged himself with ten minutes of flipping through the thick folder under H, mostly short notes in a handwriting he knew as well as his own. He paused over the last one, a telegram dated 24 April 1891 saying only "YOUR ROOMS THREE TODAY PLEASE HELP SH", nearly split apart at the fold line. 

Enough of that; to work. The M's indeed held what he was looking for. A small folder of letters from Colonel James Moriarty dated 1891 through 1893, threatening legal action, with cousin Mycroft's scrawled notes on the letters: "Have reminded the Col that defendant of his potential lawsuit is deceased and therefore immune from libel prosecution"; "Have pointed out to the Col that my cousins know nothing of his brother and will hardly have libelled him; have also written to Alexander to warn him; since A. will suggest libel suit in return, have explained why this is ill-advised"; and on the last letter from the Colonel, "Blithering fool; will not waste paper on further correspondence". And in a separate folder, a letter in a Dublin-postmarked envelope:

> 29 April 1916
> 
> Dear Mr. Holmes:
> 
> In the face of greater evils, I write to end at least one feud: I beg that you will put aside any ill will in the matter of my uncle, Professor James Moriarty, and your brother, Sherlock Holmes.
> 
> My father could not accept the aspersions on his own brother's character, but I am certain that the accusations stemmed from honest error and not from malice. My father is now deceased. Two of my brothers have fallen in France, and my youngest brother fights in the trenches in Flanders; I am only spared myself because of a crippled leg. I have not the stomach for the continuation of a smaller feud.
> 
> I renounce my father's accusations against your brother. Whatever the truth to the rumours about your brother's false friend, I cannot believe that Sherlock Holmes himself had any involvement in criminal activity. I do not, however, ask you to renounce your brother's accusations against my uncle. I ask only this: that you continue to keep the silence you have kept these many years on the topic, as I have and will do the same. The matter is already forgotten by so many, and those few who do remember, remember because of my father's ill-thought letters to the papers, fixing in the memories of the world what might otherwise have vanished into time.
> 
> The fourth of May, 1891, was a date we both mourn—my uncle's death in an accident on the Continent, and your brother's cruel murder. Let us likewise be united in letting the dead bury their dead.
> 
> I remain, etc.  
>  Joseph Moriarty

Sherlock had read the letter once, many years ago, and thought that Joseph Moriarty was doing his best not to say "I know my uncle was really a criminal, but please don't publicise it"; this reading did nothing to change his opinion. Oddly, unlike most of the letters, there was no scrawled note, no indication of any response. 

He made a photocopy, emailing a scan to himself for good measure (Mycroft's account on the desktop was still impossible to break into, and Sherlock's third attempt resulted in a text saying *You cannot seriously think I choose passwords that carelessly. Use the guest account. MH*).

Before he left, he went into the tiny library, a room with barely space for the floor-to-ceiling shelves, the comfortable window seat, and the tall locked cabinet. He picked the lock and gazed at the violin case. *I am not touching it. SH* he texted pre-emptively.

The response was nearly immediate. *It needs to be played, and I lack the skill. MH.*

*Still not interested. SH* He relocked the cabinet and left before the violin could tempt him further.

* * *

As if the corpse yesterday hadn't been enough, today there were _two_ bodies: a man and a woman, both with one ear severed, found in a rowing boat tethered to one of the jetties in St Katharine Docks. John rubbed his eyes—Sherlock had had nightmares again last night, and the violin playing had been unusually dissonant—and tried to look at the scene as Sherlock would have.

How _did_ Sherlock do it? John had gone so far as to read _The Science of Deduction_ to see if Sherlock's cousin had been able to explain his methods, but the ability Holmes and Sherlock had, John utterly lacked. Or maybe Holmes simply couldn't explain his mind to ordinary people; maybe he should've let Watson write the book.

There was the cardboard box with the strange address, of course, containing two ears packed in salt. "Yeah," Anderson said at John's glance. "The severed edges match. Have to wait for the lab to confirm, but ten pounds says they're theirs."

"Not taking that one," John said. Sherlock would have come to some conclusion about the fact that one ear was pierced—the man's ear, John suspected—but John couldn't see any pattern. "Any idea who S. Cushing is?"

"Peter Cushing's long-lost cousin? I have no idea. Do I look like your damned freak flatmate? What's his excuse this time, anyway? I thought he liked severed body parts."

John chose not to mention the collection of toes and foot skin samples in the fridge—Sherlock had developed a theory that one could tell where a soldier had been stationed by what foot fungi he or she had; John was sceptical, but had been willing to trim a layer off a callus himself to donate to the cause. "He claims he can't come because he doesn't want to miss an appointment. Which is bollocks, because it's not until eleven, and if _I_ have time to show up here first, so does he." He glanced at his watch. "And I'd best be off if I'm going to be there on time."

Anderson glanced around and said in a low voice, "Before you go, can I have a word with you in private?"

About what? "Certainly."

They walked down the dock together. Anderson finally said, "Whatever you're up to with Sally, if you hurt her, I will kill you myself."

"Wait, what?"

"And I don't care that you'll probably plug me in the process or that Sherlock will dose me with some undetectable and slow-acting fatal poison in revenge." Anderson's voice was rising as he spoke; Lestrade and Sally, discussing something by the squad car, both looked towards them.

"You've got the wrong idea. Look, I'm not...we're not seeing each other."

Anderson folded his arms. "Yeah, right."

"Come on, do you really believe she'd put up with the amount of Sherlock that dating me involves?"

"When she stopped calling him 'freak' and said it was because it offended you? Yeah. I do."

"Oh, for.... No. We're not dating. We're friends, that's all. Ask her if you don't believe me." Christ, first Sherlock and now Sally; why did everyone think his sex life was a whole lot more active than it actually was?

"Fine. Forget I said anything. Just, she's...."

"Perfectly capable of kicking me in the plums herself if needed." John took a deep breath. "Warning taken. Stop worrying about her."

Anderson looked away. "Think I haven't tried? Excuse me, I have an actual job I'm neglecting."

* * *

John had greatly overestimated the time it took to get from the crime scene to Jim's office; he arrived nearly half an hour early. No sign of Sherlock, of course, and the drizzle had left the steps too damp to sit on. At least military training was good for something.

The door opened a few minutes later. "Good morning, Dr. Watson. James won't be here for a while yet, but you will be much more comfortable inside. Come upstairs, please."

He could hardly argue that he'd rather stand in the mist. "Thank you, Mrs. Moriarty."

She took him to a different room than before, a small room at the front of the house. Shelves of vinyl records and compact discs covered half the walls; the remaining wall space held embroidered pieces that looked vaguely Eastern European, as well as more family photographs. A baby grand piano took up half the floor, and two comfortable-looking chairs faced a stereo system; a record was playing on the turntable.

The music was lovely in spite of the noise that suggested the recording was ancient. John listened, entranced, to the solo contralto and the accompanying piano. "Isn't that from Mahler's second?"

"It is, the 'O Glaube' from the finale. One of his best compositions, though it suffers being compressed to the piano. You enjoy Mahler, then?"

"I love what I've heard of his work. Sherlock complains whenever I listen to Mahler, though, and if I put Bruckner on he says it's like Wagner without the intellectual content. Keeps threatening to put on the Ring Cycle and make me sit through all twenty hours." Perhaps Sherlock was not the most politic person to mention. "Look, I'm sorry about how he was acting when you met him...."

She stopped him. "You have nothing to apologise for. And if you haven't heard the Ring, you should call his bluff; I suspect you would enjoy it." She pointed to a familiar-looking photograph of five people. "James tells me that your friend identified my great-uncle, without seeing a photo of him before."

"Yes," John said. How much had Jim told her? "And yesterday he found a letter to his cousin from a Joseph Moriarty, asking him to keep quiet about all the accusations."

"Uncle Joseph?" She chuckled. "Of course he'd have asked that. He wouldn't have wanted any legal attention for fear of what they'd find about himself."

Oh? "You think your _uncle_ might have been involved in something shady?"

"My dear, I know he was. Half the Moriarty family worked with Great-Uncle James; the other half were in denial. My grandfather and father never could bear to admit where their inheritances came from." 

Before John could ask any more questions, the front door opened and closed, and Jim's voice called up, "Ma, it's me." He came in a minute later, his jacket and trousers showing little sign of the rain. "We shouldn't be too long...John? What are you doing here?"

"I invited him in," Mrs. Moriarty said before John could reply. "You didn't expect him to wait in the rain, I hope."

"Now, I treat my clients better than that."

"I'm not your client, though," John said before he could stop himself.

"Not yet, anyway. Shall we go downstairs and wait for Sherlock? Ma, thanks for keeping him entertained."

"Certainly. Wait a moment, Dr. Watson." She selected a CD from the shelf. "You might enjoy listening to this further; you can bring it back the next time your friend sees James."

In Jim's office, John took up his usual post. Jim puttered around his desk and the tea table for a few minutes, then said, "You seemed much more comfortable upstairs than you do in here. You don't trust me, do you?"

"I've been reliably informed that I have trust issues." 

Jim chuckled. "I can't imagine why your past therapist would have thought so. Well, professional standards demand that I tell you nothing about my other clients. But if you'd like to speak to a couple of them who've agreed to be named as references...."

"No, it's not necessary." Honesty compelled John to continue. "Sherlock's nightmares are a lot less frequent since you started working with him. It's obvious that whatever you're doing works."

"But you don't wish to try it yourself."

"Not particularly, no." John changed the subject. "How did you decide to become a hypnotherapist, anyway?" He gestured at the drawings. "With all your interest in architecture, I'd have thought...."

"That I'd be working in an architectural firm?" Jim grinned. "I learned to do hypnosis a long time ago, and I enjoy it. And for steady cash, there's the IT work. I did want to be an architect when I was young, but.... I had this one schoolmate in Germany—we travelled a lot when I was young, my parents and I; I've attended school in five countries and six languages."

John shook his head. "The paperwork must have been terrible."

"You have no idea. Anyway, he was a brilliant designer. Genuinely a genius. He was fifteen, and he drew sketches of imaginary buildings that would have made Wren weep for their beauty and Pei for their creativity, with load calculations and recommended materials—even then I knew they were amazing. I looked at my own efforts and realized that I could become workmanlike, but I never would be able to do what he did. So I gave it up completely; I've satisfied myself with being a connoisseur." Jim shook his head. "And Chuck said he didn't want to draw buildings for a living. He ended up becoming a biochemist. A good biochemist, but still, what a waste." He chuckled. "And I'm the therapist, and here I am telling you my life story. I can see why Sherlock keeps you around." The doorbell rang. "And speak of the devil."

 _I'm everyone's confidant today,_ John thought as Jim went to let Sherlock in. _Maybe **I** should've been a therapist._

* * *

When Jim opened the door, Sherlock mentally set aside the data Dennis and Ed had given him this morning ( _a black Mondeo with a Czech registration plate had been seen last night and the night before near the crime scenes; different numbers, but given that both cars had a dent on the right rear passenger door, it was plausibly the same car with one or two false plates_ ).

"Bad night?" Jim asked as they went into the office, where John was already perched on the sofa humming—God, not Mahler again; John was far too enamored of bombastic German Romantics.

"I've had better," Sherlock replied. "You clearly have too."

"You're right, I didn't sleep that well. But I work nights so often, I'm used to broken sleep; I'll have twelve hours tomorrow." Jim started making the tea, after a raised eyebrow towards John and John's headshake in reply. "Woke up to the news about those bodies at the docks. That's so bizarre about the severed ears. But you didn't come from there—you're not working on that case?"

Sherlock accepted the cup. "I'm otherwise occupied."

"Pity. Well, I'm sure you have a lot of people wanting your help; have to pick and choose." 

They drank in silence for a minute, John still humming softly and reading the back of a CD case ( _unfamiliar; not time for John to have visited a shop; no reason Jim would have lent it; Mrs. Moriarty?_ ). At last, Jim said, "You really ought to help the police, though; they'll never solve it without you."

Almost certainly true, and the puzzle was harder and harder to resist; however....Sherlock set his cup down. "I don't tell you how to manage your career. Kindly do me the same courtesy."

"If you say so, but I still think it's a shame. Secant phenol metacarpal, three two one."

His eyes fell closed, and he relaxed into the darkness. In the distance, he heard the warm voice say, "Bloody hell!"

"Seems to have taken," the lilting voice preened. "And now...." Four snaps.

Sherlock opened his eyes. "That was...." _unsettling_ "...very odd."

Jim smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry to spring it on you like that, but you must admit it's an effective way to show that it works. Shall we try again, with a little warning this time?"

Sherlock glanced at John. "Yes. Today I want to find out what else my cousin knew about the Professor."

"All right. Ready? Secant phenol metacarpal, three two one."

He fell into the trance, into the past, with greater ease than before. This time, the fall brought him past the bloom of agony to a street where Holmes interviewed an urchin while Watson stood guard, then to a tiny storage room off the theatre of the Alexandra Palace, where a man was kept prisoner.

And finally, 221B again. Watson poured a glass of brandy and offered it to Holmes. "You have saved Mr. Etherege's person and reputation, preserved the well-being of his family, and saved his firm from a financial disaster. And all deduced from the stains on a scarf! You never cease to astound me."

Holmes accepted the drink but waved aside the compliment. "A trivial exercise, and not worthy of such praise. But there is something more to this crime. An uneducated stagehand, barely literate—why should he have such an interest in disrupting the financial affairs of the Empire? And how could he have known that Mr. Etherege would have the ability to write such letters? He must have had help, or have been working for someone else, but for whom? It is a very pretty problem, and I believe it will keep my mind occupied some little time."

Four snaps.

"I know it hasn't been that long today," Jim said as Sherlock blinked and focused, "but I have work this afternoon. Next Monday, maybe?"

In the cab on the way home, Sherlock held out his hand for the CD. "Let me see what Mrs. Moriarty lent you."

He read the jewel case—"songs performed by Mrs. Godfrey Norton, originally recorded on wax cylinders in 1910"; "digitally remastered"; "noted singer in her youth, still showing the talent that had made her famous". Mrs. Godfrey Norton, Godfrey Norton, why did that sound familiar...oh. _Oh._

"Do you remember when I talked about the case of Irene Adler and the King of Moravia?" he asked.

John snorted. "Secret compartments? Can't forget."

"When I told you and Jim about it, did I give her married name?"

John's forehead wrinkled ( _it was less than two months ago; it shouldn't be that hard to recall_ ). "I don't think you did, no."

"She married a lawyer named Godfrey Norton. Holmes was a witness at her wedding." He had not seen that part in the regression, but his past self had known the fact. Sherlock gave the CD back to John. "She was an opera singer, after all."

"This is _her_?" John opened the case and read the liner notes. "You're right; it gives her maiden name here." After a minute, he grinned. "This is amazing. And we're listening to this when we get home; I can't wait to hear the woman who outwitted Sherlock Holmes."

True to his threat, John played the CD, and then played it through twice more. Sherlock tolerated it—the arias from _Tosca_ and _La Boheme_ were actually quite lovely, as were the Schubert lieder; the Mahler was trite, though, and she really no longer had the voice for Wagner. But John was clearly entranced, a rare state and one worth a hundred—well, twenty—repetitions of "O believe, my heart".

* * *

The next few sessions with Jim were not especially productive; Sherlock entered the trance easily, but he rarely saw a scene from his past that gave new information. He thought once about trying to see Reichenbach again, but once in the trance, the urge vanished, and when he mentioned it afterwards, Jim said, "I really don't think you're ready for it yet. Let's wait a few more weeks—it's not as if you can get more information about the Professor as your past self wrestles with him, is it?"

But other avenues of investigation were more fruitful. On the morning of the 28th, a courier service delivered a packet of photocopies from one of the Swiss archives. Sherlock paused his tobacco ash experiments with only mild regret (while he could identify 143 types of cigarette by their ashes or butts, he'd recently realized that his knowledge of pipe tobacco was lacking; John was not particularly happy about this experiment but had limited his complaints to eating breakfast in Mrs. Hudson's flat). 

"Hotel records," he said to John as he spread the papers out on the table. "We should be able to track my cousin's route, and perhaps Moriarty's as well."

John closed his book and dragged his chair over from the window. "They can't have been travelling under their real names."

"No, but...." Sherlock started with the Alte Hof in Leuk; ah, there. "Here he is. William Escott. And here's their next stop, the hotel in Reichenbach im Kandertal—ignore the name; it's nowhere near the falls. There."

John looked at the photocopies with interest. "And James Murray? Is that Watson's pseudonym?"

"Likely. And here, there's their third night."

John had already shuffled through the papers and found the register for the Englischer Hof in Meiringen. "And here's their last, the third of May."

Sherlock brushed his fingers against the names. "The journey's end." He shook himself out of the lurking sentimentality. "Now, one assumes that Moriarty was also travelling under a pseudonym, since no one's ever presented evidence of his location at the time...."

"Maybe this one?" John's voice was suddenly tight as he pointed to the register for the hotel in Ringgenberg.

In Moriarty's distinctive jagged script was written "John H. Watson."

Sherlock laughed. "Clever. And when someone made the claim that Watson was actually connected with Moriarty's gang, if this record was found, it would only have fed that idea. And, hmm, that's interesting...." He pointed to the name below. "Colonel Sebastian Moran. One of the two eyewitnesses."

Moriarty turned out to have used several pseudonyms, though John Watson appeared twice more. And even more interesting....

John looked up at him. "Am I seeing a genuine pattern here with Moran always being in the same hotel as Moriarty? At least, until the 3rd of May?"

Sometimes, John caught on delightfully fast. "If you're mistaken, then so am I. Intriguing." Perhaps Moran should be his next focus for research. 

A loud rap came from the outside door; John looked towards the window. "No need," Sherlock said. "It's Lestrade." True, several makes of car had the same engine as the standard police car, but Sherlock had long since learned to recognize the sound of the one Lestrade usually drove.

John went down to let him in. "Careful; when you get upstairs you're going to start craving a cigarette."

"Never have stopped." Lestrade didn't pause to inhale the residual smoke when he came in, though ( _unsettled; this case must be particularly disturbing_ ). "Sherlock, it's another of those posed bodies. Can you come?"

 _Would it do any harm to go?_ Sherlock thought. The hotel records would keep, and the data on the black Mondeo had suggested a possible line of inquiry, and it had been so long since he'd seen an _interesting_ crime scene.... No. He had the new lead of Colonel Moran, a new person to investigate. "I'm busy."

"This one's different."

Sherlock paused. "Different how?"

"This time, it's a kid."

"Christ," John said. "How old?"

"Five or six. And she's dressed in this...look, we need your help on this one. Please come."

Sherlock made his decision and felt the immediate easing of a mental pressure he hadn't been consciously aware of. "I'm going to change; tell John where it is, and we'll meet you there."

When Sherlock emerged from his room, John was looking pensive, but as soon as he saw Sherlock he smoothed his expression (insufficiently; John was rubbish at concealing his inner state from Sherlock). Still.... "You heard Lestrade," Sherlock said. "This one's different. Ready?"

John lifted his chin. "Always."

And as he was telling the truth, Sherlock did not press for details on what was bothering him about Sherlock's taking the case; there would be time for that later.


	11. 28 July - 29 July

Sally met them at the front of the vacant house in Croydon where the body had been found. "Passerby saw her an hour and a half ago, propped up against a first floor window," she said as she led them inside.

She sounded more clipped than usual to John. "Anything like that one a few weeks back in Streatham?" he asked.

"No, she was entirely inside the room, window closed." Sally said nothing else until they reached the top of the stairs and entered the room where Anderson and his assistants worked silently. "Mr. Holmes has graced us with his presence."

The body was a tiny figure in a long red dress, arms covered by white gloves and face by a yellowish-white mask. Sherlock grabbed a pair of latex gloves and knelt to look at the body. "Dead some time."

"Yes," Anderson said. 

"That wasn't a question." Sherlock pointed to the yellowish-white mask that covered the child's face. "You haven't moved this?"

"It's glued on; we're leaving it until we get her to the morgue."

"Too squeamish to figure out how to remove it otherwise? What a surprise." Sherlock did his usual pokings and proddings, undoubtedly deducing her cause of death, number of siblings, and favorite dessert. It was fascinating as always to watch him at work, but just this once, John wished it unnecessary.

Suddenly, feeling the front of the child's shoulder, Sherlock said, "Oh, _interesting_ ," and lifted the skirt of the dress. John caught a glimpse of an incision in the centre of the child's abdomen before Sherlock dropped the skirt back down.

"Oh, God," Sally said, "can't you leave it until she's in the morgue?"

"If Lestrade had wanted me to examine her in the morgue, he would have told me to go there." Sherlock felt the hands. "The fact that the child is of similar ethnic background to you and the same age as two of your nieces is no reason for you to be upset."

"Sod off, freak." She glanced at John. "Sorry."

He could hardly blame her. "Think about moonlight on the Thames."

Sherlock sat back on his heels. "You're all being sentimental idiots. Thousands of children die from disease every day; why are you wasting your feelings on this one?"

John deflected Anderson's attempted punch before he consciously realized that it was happening, and then was almost sorry. "Leave this one to me," he said to Anderson quietly. "Sherlock? Downstairs. Now."

Sherlock looked at him, then whirled to his feet and strode away. _Too easy_ , John thought, but followed him to the large front room downstairs, where Sherlock turned and said, "You are all...."

"Yes, I know. We're all stupid, we're all missing the obvious, and so on, et cetera, et cetera. Yes, the police haven't been able to solve these bodies without your help. You know what? If I were one of them, I wouldn't give a damn how many criminals went free, as long as it meant I never had to work with you again."

"You're also letting your emotions cloud your judgment. Did you do that often in the Army, Captain Watson?"

 _I should've let Anderson punch him._ "Shut it. You've been swanning around for weeks saying that solving your bloody cousin's murder—your bloody 119-years-dead cousin's murder—is too important for you to waste your time on this, and now you show up all 'fall at my feet and let me at the evidence, the Great Detective has returned'? Get the fuck out of this building. Go use your brilliant detective skills to get some leads for Lestrade's team, if you're working on this damn case again."

Sherlock glared, opened his mouth, closed it, and left, slamming the front door on his way out.

"About time," said Lestrade from the hallway. "I'm surprised you didn't do that months ago."

John sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Oh, I've bawled him out before; just not in front of witnesses."

He went back upstairs, where the mood was perceptibly less grim than before. John nodded to Sally and bent down to look at the body for himself. "How far up does that incision go? Or if you're waiting till you get to the morgue to check it...."

"Funny you should mention the morgue." Anderson gently tugged the neckline of the dress, revealing another line of stitches. "Looks like someone already did the autopsy, doesn't it—you all right?"

It had been a running joke, in his days as a surgeon, that you could always tell who'd sewn up the incisions by the stitches. Not entirely true, but John had found over time that he could reliably guess—the angles, the spacing, the length; together they were almost like a signature. And after the months of working with Sherlock, he'd recognize these tiny even stitches on any corpse. "Yeah, I'm fine. Do you have the number for Barts morgue?"

A few minutes later, he was talking to Molly Hooper. "Molly? This is John Watson. Yeah, Sherlock's assistant. Sorry to bother you, but sometime recently did you do the autopsy on a little girl? About five or six years old, Afro-Caribbean, 115 cm tall.... You have? In that case, can you meet us at the central morgue—oh, thanks; Sergeant Donovan says she can pick you up. We need you to have a look at a corpse."

* * *

Molly pulled the sheet back. "Yes, I remember her. Her name's Clarice Johnson."

"Was she murdered?" Sally asked.

"Oh, no. Leukemia, a rare variety. She died in Barts." Molly looked puzzled. "But she should have been buried days ago. What's she doing here?"

The thought suddenly emerged from John's mind. "What if all these bodies aren't murders after all? What if they were all stolen before they could be buried or cremated? That might be why we haven't seen any missing-person reports."

That distinctive voice came through the door. "Of course they're stolen bodies." Sherlock threw down a stack of papers in front of Sally. "Name of the funeral home, name of the employee likeliest to be the candidate, number plate of the car that's been seen at two of the scenes at the right time." He seemed to realize they were all staring at him; clearly, this made him even more smug. "Does this meet your standards of useful information, John?"

John rolled his eyes, in spite of being impressed. "Wanker."

"You've been holding out on us," Sally said, nonetheless flipping through the stack.

"I didn't have the final clue until I saw the incision on this body. Then it was obvious. I should have realized months ago."

Sally rolled her eyes. "Maybe if you'd actually deigned to show up, you would've. I'll call the boss." She shook her head. "I'm glad this poor kid wasn't murdered, but whoever planted her was a sick person."

Molly pulled the sheet back over the child's face. "I'm glad Clarice at least got to help twice. First the cancer researchers, and now the police."

"Clarice?" Sherlock sounded scornful. "You bothered to remember her name?"

Molly looked at him calmly. "Yes."

Sherlock glanced at John and clearly read his expression. "Molly?" When she turned to look back at him, he said, "That's....kind."

She looked embarrassed. "Thank you."

They left the morgue soon afterwards, Sally already on the phone to Lestrade and directing a constable to take Molly back to Barts. "That," John said to Sherlock, "is genuinely astounding. How did you figure it out?"

Sherlock stared down the street. "I'll explain later; you have an appointment."

"What appointment?" John followed Sherlock's gaze and saw the familiar black car. Oh, Christ. "How do you know he wants to talk to me?"

"Go on; the sooner you get it over with, the sooner you'll be home."

And indeed, Anthea opened the door without looking up from her phone. "Good afternoon, Dr. Watson. Mr. Holmes is waiting for you."

* * *

This time, Mycroft had chosen a room in a museum's storage facility for their rendezvous; the shelves were filled with jars and clear plastic boxes containing what looked like wet dirt.

"So," Mycroft said, "for nearly three weeks you have been looking at the CCTV cameras every time you pass them, as if you wanted to send me a message and then changed your mind. You _are_ welcome to call, you realize, or text if you must; I wouldn't have given you my number otherwise. What do you want to tell me?"

"You didn't give me your number; it appeared on my phone the day after we met." At Mycroft's _don't be an idiot_ look, John took a deep breath. "Fine. I need a favour. Two favours, actually."

Mycroft's eyebrows rose. "That is not something I expected to hear from you."

"Well, I'm desperate. I will not spy or inform on Sherlock in return, but if I'm of any use to you otherwise, then fine, call me in and send me where you will."

"What sort of favours?"

"First, I want to know...." No, he couldn't give details; that would be far too much like the spying he had refused time and time again to do for Mycroft. "When you next see Sherlock, I want your opinion on whether there's something off about him."

"You have the same concerns about his unusually compliant behaviour recently?" Mycroft smiled at John's expression. "I have other contacts who keep me abreast of Sherlock's actions. It's atypical but not unheard of; I really don't think you need worry about it. Worry instead about what horrid surprise he is working up to springing."

He was not entirely sure he believed Mycroft, but.... "All right. Just, if you ever think he's acting oddly, will you let me know?"

"You may rest assured that I would. And as I would have done so without your asking, that does not count as a favour. The other request?"

"I want to know about Sherlock's hypnotherapist. Everything you can find on him."

"You are aware that Sherlock has already vetted Mr. Moriarty himself?"

"Yeah, well, that was Sherlock, and he didn't tell me what he found. I may not see anything he didn't, but I want to know more about Jim for my own peace of mind."

"Really, Dr. Watson, when you said 'favours', I expected requests that were difficult."

"Difficult or easy for you, doesn't matter; for me it's impossible."

"Very well. What I want in return: one bullet, through the body of a serial killer attempting to make my brother his next victim."

Of _course_ he knew about that. "If the situation ever comes up...."

"My dear Dr. Watson, you know exactly what I mean. I am in _your_ debt, and I prefer to have my accounts settled." Mycroft picked up one of the jars, sniffed, and set it back on the shelf. "Mislabelled. What a pity. In answer to your request, I have investigated Mr. Moriarty myself. And his record is clear."

"That's what Sherlock said too. Well, thanks...."

Mycroft held up a finger. "Or to be accurate, his record is acceptable. Very few people have unblemished histories. There is always something—a traffic violation, a youthful incidence of shoplifting, a reprimand for smuggling a goat into one's commanding officer's bunk...."

John coughed to conceal his surprise—and why, really, was he surprised? "Can't imagine who'd have done that."

Mycroft only smiled. "Mr. Moriarty is no exception; he has an official police warning for public drunkeness from many years ago, coincident with a particular football match—hardly a surprise; only three people in my department did _not_ receive one that night." He tapped his umbrella against the floor. "I have, however, had many years' experience with these reports. His overall record is...off. I cannot explain it more explicitly than that; I cannot point to any one item that seems falsified; but the whole does not quite fit together."

"But you don't have any solid proof?"

"No. And if he is good enough to hide a dubious past from me and my people, then he is very good indeed. It will take time. Or an error. Or blind luck." Mycroft leaned forward. "I think, on the whole, that any illicit plans on Mr. Moriarty's part are aimed elsewhere than at Sherlock. Certainly the sessions have proven beneficial. But watch my brother, John. He is still in many ways an obsessed child."

"Hardly that," John said, then remembered a couple of Sherlock's epic sulks. "Well, all right, sometimes childish. But he's competent to take care of himself."

"But when he is being told that he spent a past life as the person he most admires in history, even his mind might be biased."

"You know? Of course you know. You always know."

Mycroft chuckled. "I am not actually omniscient. But I know my brother." His face suddenly grew serious. "I have no reason to believe that he is _not_ seeing a past life. He could, however, be deceived about its details. Or he could be influenced by it to act in ways he would not have if he had continued in ignorance."

That sounded like belief. "You think reincarnation does exist, then?"

"I am certain of it."

"Have _you_ ever tried it? Past life regression?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact." 

Really? "Huh. I can't see you consulting a hypnotherapist."

"Unsurprising, as I did not. It's difficult to self-hypnotise and regress, but not impossible. And the experience was...enlightening."

John shook his head. "Don't tell me that you're the reincarnation of Mycroft Holmes."

"Hardly. That would be tedious, wouldn't it, if one could only come back as a relative? No, I have spent several lives as nobody in particular. I have died in World War I, the 1918 flu pandemic, World War II, and the Malayan Emergency. I have also been able to confirm some of my past identities, though others have proved impossible to verify, even when I was observing from within their minds rather than outside. It's interesting how rarely one thinks of oneself by name, isn't it?"

He was still processing the earlier part of that statement. "God, how short were your lives? Don't tell me that karma's real; I hate the idea that we're punished for things we don't remember doing."

"No, I believe it's far simpler and far harsher: we are reborn into the world we helped to create." Mycroft looked at his watch. "I won't detain you further; Sherlock must be bored by now."

John paused at the door. "If I were you or Sherlock, I'd deduce this, but since I'm not, I'll just ask: is that why you do the work you do?"

Mycroft's smile actually looked genuine. "I would certainly like my next life to have no greater trials than sibling rivalries, plumbing repairs, or dental work. Good day, Dr. Watson."

* * *

"It was all just in fun. A bit of performance art, you see? I didn't mean to cause any trouble."

The suspect, Andrew Elkins, was undoubtedly one of the most boring criminals Sherlock had interviewed in months. Lestrade's team had arrested Elkins at the funeral home yesterday, and he had readily confessed to the placing of the posed bodies and had turned over identifying information on almost all of them.

"Hardly relevant," Sherlock said. He tilted his chair back, earning a glare from Lestrade ( _who clearly wanted to do the same_ ) and a sidelong glance from Sally ( _hoping that he'd fall_ ), but the muscular control of balancing helped keep him focused after another night of short sleep. "Why did you choose the poses you did?"

"Whatever came to mind at the time. I'd just pick some props for the hell of it." 

_Lie,_ Sherlock thought.

"You stole a poisonous snake from the zoo just for the hell of it?" Sally asked.

"Well, I might have had a couple pints too many that time, but I was walking near there, and I thought, why not, how hard can it be?"

_Lie._

Sally said, "Tell us how you trapped it."

Sherlock was gratified to see Elkins blink and fumble before saying, "The tools they had there, of course. Toss it in the box, and there you have it."

_Lie._

"What about the cameras?" Lestrade asked. "What did you do to keep yourself from being caught on video?"

"I didn't do anything. I was lucky, I guess; always picked the broken ones or the ones pointed away."

_Lie._

Lestrade pushed a photograph of the original corpse, the Czech, across the table. "Constable Guha says you couldn't identify this man. Would you mind looking again?"

A long silence before Elkins replied. "I didn't do this one. I have no idea who this man is." 

_Truth._

_Odd._

The otherwise pointless interview soon ended, and Sherlock found John flirting with a new receptionist in the lobby. "Two boyfriends already, neither knows about the other, both violently jealous," Sherlock said as he steered John away. The receptionist ( _also two dogs; painted bad landscapes; on medication for hypothyroid_ ) glared at him.

"Thanks," John said in the tone that more often meant _piss off_. But he was willing to listen to Sherlock's summary of the interview as they rode home, and he finally said, "I don't believe him."

"Of course not. He was obviously lying for most of the interview. And he clearly had at least one accomplice, but he's either too loyal or too cowed to give a name."

"Because those scenes can't be random. They're too...it'd take too much _work_ and too much _money_ to do some of the things he did, even with help. I know I can't see a pattern—"

"Neither can I. Yet."

"—but there _is_ one; I know there is."

Now, that was interesting. "Why do you think so?"

John paused and thought. "Honestly? I have no idea. Maybe just _because_ they don't have enough in common."

"Yes. There's not a style."

"And another thing: why the spacing? I can see doing it irregularly, especially if he had to wait for a good body, but looking at the dates—it makes no sense. He had to have kept some frozen for weeks and planted others right away, and why the _hell_ would he go two weeks with nothing and then four in one week? It doesn't make sense."

A pattern we don't see, Sherlock thought. But what?

Then all thought was swept aside as they entered 221B to find Mycroft sitting in John's chair. "Mrs. Hudson!" Sherlock called as he took off his jacket. "Time to call the pest control company!"

"Good afternoon." Mycroft nodded to John, then focused on Sherlock. "You know why I'm here."

"Much as I hope for something different, yes."

"And now that your other case has largely been resolved...."

"Only partially."

"...and you are finding the most fascinating information about Professor James Moriarty's Swiss travels...."

Sherlock stretched out on the couch. "How many times must I tell you that I'm not interested?"

Mycroft looked at him calmly, rubbing his thumb over the spot on the umbrella handle that concealed a biometric chip (Sherlock had often tried and failed to activate it, but suspected he knew what it was for anyway). "My best people have failed to find any leads, even after three months of work."

"So the best leads are long gone."

"Sherlock. Please. Take this case."

Fine. "All right. Where am I going?" At least if it had stumped Mycroft's people, it would be _interesting_.

Mycroft hesitated—only a half second, but that was more than enough for Sherlock to notice—and said, "Prague."

"Stop looking at me like I'm a French civil servant who admits to speaking English. You wanted me to take it. You're going to hound me until I do. I've given in. Tell me what I'm looking for. John, stay."

Mycroft waited until John had seated himself, then said, "Some months ago, a government department had been in negotiations with a firm in Prague that had been researching an interrogation drug."

Sherlock shook his head. "Why must you fund those filthy things?"

"If people like you chose to work in intelligence rather than as freelance private detectives—very well, consulting detectives—perhaps we wouldn't need to. At any rate, it is moot; before the deal could be closed, the formula was stolen. And by 'stolen', I mean that all the files, samples, and notes are gone, and the man in charge of the project has not been seen since the eighth of April."

"So find him."

"We've tried." Mycroft took a photograph from a folder. "This is Karl Macht, one of the founders of the company and their lead scientist. He may be a victim or an accomplice; we have no evidence either way...."

Oh, for God's sake. "You cannot be serious." Sherlock snatched the photograph and held it out to John. "Recognize him?"

John's forehead wrinkled, then smoothed. "German-speaking Czech. You were right yet again."

His grin produced that odd twist in Sherlock's chest; Sherlock ignored it and smirked at Mycroft. "He turned up on the banks of the Serpentine back in April. He's been buried, but I'm sure Molly Hooper took samples you can check against any DNA information."

Mycroft's eyebrows lowered. "Interesting. How did he enter the country? Obviously, not legally, and not through any of the illegal routes we monitor."

"And quite possibly not alive."

"Possibly. Though in that case one wonders why someone would have made the effort to bring his corpse here." Mycroft rose. "I leave it to you to sort out our unknowns' motivations. You'll both leave tomorrow morning."

"Hang on a minute," John said. "I can't. I'm scheduled to work."

"I've taken care of it," Mycroft replied.

"No, you haven't."

Not another pointless discussion. "Wait five minutes," Sherlock said. "I agreed to take this case; I did not agree to do it on your timetable if it disrupts my previous commitments." He texted Jim. *Any possibility of rescheduling tomorrow's session for tonight? SH*

Mycroft raised his eyebrows but said nothing; John continued to simmer. Four minutes later, the phone chimed. *11pm too late for you?*

*Not at all; we'll see you then. SH*

"All right," Sherlock said, putting away his phone, "tomorrow it is."

"What? So your session with Jim is worth rescheduling around, but my _job_ isn't?"

"I _am_ your job."

John rolled his eyes. "I want a raise." He held up a warning hand to Mycroft. "No. Don't even think about it."

"Certainly not, if the idea offends." Mycroft rose. "Anthea will drop off the needed paperwork this evening before you leave for your appointment."

 _Not if I leave now,_ Sherlock thought.

Mycroft only gave him that look, _Still childish._

After the door had closed behind Mycroft, John said, "So, you rescheduled Jim?"

Sherlock sat down at the table, still covered with the copies of the hotel registers and the map of Switzerland. "Tonight at eleven."

"Christ. What time is this flight tomorrow?"

"Knowing Mycroft, six a.m. He always likes early morning flights; he says they're less likely to be delayed." Before John could say more, Sherlock added, "Your observation about the nightmares...." Last night's had been Watson's trial; Sherlock had shouted at the judge to cross-examine Colonel Moran, and as always had been unheard.

"Yeah, I noticed." John sighed. "So you want to test out the other half, and see if a hypnosis session will keep you from having nightmares while we're abroad. Of course, the timing of the session means we won't get any sleep tonight, so that's one night's worth prevented...."

He was interrupted by the chime of an incoming text on his phone; Sherlock pretended to be absorbed in the hotel registers spread on the table, but noted John's moment of surprise ( _someone unexpected_ ) and then his thoughtful and slightly perturbed expression ( _no surprise, however, about the content of the text_ ).

John said nothing about the text, though. "All right, I'm going to take a nap, then."

"Charge your phone," Sherlock said, and continued to focus on his papers as John plugged it in. Interesting, Colonel Moran had stayed three days in Meiringen, and then... Sherlock had not requested any records from hotels in Bern, but perhaps he should do so, see who had been there during the preparation for the trial.

He waited until the footsteps upstairs indicated that John had gone to bed, then checked John's phone.

*You are, I'm afraid, correct. Be careful. Mycroft Holmes*

Correct about what? ...oh, Christ, that interfering _bastard_. Yes, John had been acting concerned about Sherlock, which was tolerable because it was _John_ , and because John didn't show it like Mycroft did, with surveillance cameras and tedious lectures. (There had indeed been a time when Mycroft had undoubtedly been wiser than he, but really, that time had been when Mycroft was fourteen and Sherlock seven.) John just looked at him when he thought Sherlock wasn't watching.

And Mycroft thought that John's concerns, whatever they were, were valid. But neither had told Sherlock, which suggested that the concerns were ultimately trivial. Stupid meddling Mycroft.

A rap on the outside door interrupted his thoughts. He heard Mrs. Hudson answer it, then footsteps that had grown more familiar over the past month.

"John's asleep," he said as Sally entered the room, "so you can perform your errand and go away."

"Gladly," she said, dropping a disk by him. "Boss asked me to give this to you. I thought you should come down to the Yard, but no."

Sherlock took the disk. "286-B3?"

"Yes."

The mail program on Sherlock's laptop chimed; it was a message from Mycroft.

*Payment for identification of Mr. Macht has been placed in video directory on your laptop.—Mycroft Holmes*

Damn, that password should have kept even him out. However.... Sherlock gave the disk back to Sally. "Don't need it anymore."

"What?"

"Your hearing does still function, correct?"

"I don't believe this," Sally snarled. "You've been haranguing the boss about it for weeks, and now that he's finally gone through all the authorizations you suddenly change your mind."

He looked up at her for the first time since she arrived ( _came straight here from the Yard; hasn't eaten since breakfast; still annoyed that she had to cancel date last night; received at least two phone messages from her mother today, returned neither_ ). "I didn't change my mind; I simply received a copy through other channels. And no, not illegal ones." Or at least not ones that would ever be prosecuted. "Tell Lestrade that I appreciate the effort, or whatever meaningless phrase you want. Good-bye."

Halfway to the door, Sally stopped. "John's right, you know. If I found out I'd never have to work with you again, it'd be the happiest day of my life even if it meant that our solve rate plummeted."

"You're lying." He hardly had to look at her to tell. "You want to solve crimes; you want criminals caught and punished. And that's why you can't do without me."

"We didn't need you for this one. John figured out where the bodies were coming from without you. Molly Hooper had the name of the funeral home in her records. We'd have got Elkins without your help."

"You'd have bungled it somehow; the police always do. All your procedures and rules...."

"...are because a judge and a hostile barrister will throw out our evidence if we didn't follow the law. I bet it's great fun not having to worry about that. It's all a game to you." She waved towards the drawing of Professor Moriarty, now framed and hanging over the couch. "Real criminal living now or mystery nineteenth-century bloke, you don't care; you don't have to _prove_ anything."

Why was everyone so _stupid_? "Of course it's a game. And if I can't provide proof of their guilt, I _lose_."

"I'm sorry, but would you two mind postponing the debate?" John stood at the foot of the stairs, rubbing his eyes.

"Happy to," Sally replied. Odd, Sherlock hadn't thought anything short of a Lestrade reprimand would make her look contrite. "Sorry we woke you."

"Hadn't quite fallen asleep yet." John shrugged. "Speaking of mystery nineteenth-century blokes, ever heard of Professor James Moriarty?"

"Alleged leader of the gang that was tried after Holmes' murder? Nowhere near enough _actual evidence_ to convict?" She glared at Sherlock as she said that. "Yeah, he's mentioned in a few of the books on the Holmes case."

"We're going out of town, but can I borrow those after we get back? We think he might actually be the one who killed Holmes."

Sally gave both of them a long silent look. Finally, she said, "What did I say about evidence? The three-body theory's been floated ever since Watson made the claim, you know."

Oh, for God's sake. "Fine," Sherlock said. "Find me a photograph of the crime scene—oh, wait, you can't; it'd be long lost. Find me an eyewitness's journal, someone who had no reason to lie about events—oh, wait; if there was one it'd have turned up by now. Do you think I don't _realize_ how little _real_ evidence we have? If it were easy to prove, wouldn't some idiot have done it by now?" Wait.... "What are you smiling about?"

Her grin only widened. "Must be something stupid. John, call when you're back and I'll drop the books off."

She left, and John yawned. "The big sleep, take two."

The words slipped out before he could stop them. "John? What you said yesterday, that if you were the police, you'd be happy to see crimes go unsolved if it meant you didn't have to work with me...did you mean it?" 

John exhaled, and the corners of his mouth turned up slightly. "I'm not the police. See you in a few hours."

* * *

"Let's begin, then," Jim said. "Secant phenol metacarpal, three two one."

John shuddered as Sherlock's eyes fell closed. "Just so you know," he said in a low voice, "that still freaks me out."

Jim's reply was equally quiet. "It's helped by our surroundings and by habit."

"So I couldn't use that phrase to, oh, hypnotise him while he's driving?"

"It won't cause him to close his eyes and crash, no. Don't believe what people do with hypnosis in adventure films; the reality is much subtler." Jim leaned forward. "Sherlock, today I'd like you to go to some past event that illuminates your present life. Not your past death, though; not Reichenbach. Something earlier, something that may give you insight into your present self."

Sherlock nodded, inhaled, and briefly grimaced. Then his face relaxed again. "October of 1889," he said. "Holmes had sent Watson to Baskerville Hall, in Dartmoor, to investigate the mysterious events surrounding the death of the previous baronet and to protect his successor, Sir Henry Baskerville."

"Baskerville?" John asked. "Any connection to the Baskerville research facility?"

Jim hushed him and said to Sherlock, "Why is this important?"

"Because Watson has been collecting information for Holmes for days, and now believes that Holmes had only sent him to Dartmoor to get him out of the way. Holmes is trying to convince him that in actuality, Watson's work was valuable and useful."

"God, that sounds familiar," John muttered. "Can't imagine why." If he _had_ been Watson in a previous life, would he have been willing to put up with yet _another_ life running after Sherlock Holmes? He was horribly afraid that the answer was "yes".

As Sherlock described the case—and that was yet another one that sounded more interesting than either of the two Watson had published—John glanced at Jim. Odd. Jim looked interested, but also puzzled.

John himself couldn't see any connection between the Baskerville story and any of their current cases, though it was interesting when Holmes deduced from a portrait that a neighbour was actually an estranged cousin. And the dog was certainly frightening.

"Now," Jim said after Sherlock had fallen silent, "I want to try something a little different. That first incident you described, when Holmes and Watson meet again at the stone huts—go back to that."

"I'm there," Sherlock said after a pause. "It's growing dark."

"Good. All this time, you've only been observing. Now, I want you to change that. I want you to enter your past self's mind and see the scene through his eyes."

"All right." Sherlock's forehead creased.

Then he fell from the chair, clutching his head.

John dove from the couch to Sherlock's side. "Sherlock! What's wrong?"

Sherlock opened his eyes, clearly no longer in trance. "Christ," he said, shaking off John's attempt to feel his pulse and glaring at Jim. "What the hell was that?"

"I was about to ask you the same thing." Jim's eyes were wide.

Slowly, Sherlock sat up, one hand pressing his forehead and temples. "It feels like I ran into a wall head-first."

John turned to Jim. "Did you know this might happen?"

"I didn't! Okay, I knew it _could_ , but I had no reason to think it'd affect _him_." Jim shoved his chair back and hurried around the desk, kneeling by them. "Sherlock, are you all right?"

Sherlock grabbed Jim's necktie at the knot. "Tell me why I now have a headache the size of London."

"Because, somehow, your past mind is anathema to your present. Something about your past self feels so wrong to you that you will not let yourself experience it."

What? "That makes no sense," John said. "They're both geniuses. They're both detectives. They have the same bad habits, for God's sake."

But Sherlock was nodding as he let go of Jim's tie. "It could be." He looked at John. "If I were to try to enter my brother's mind, I undoubtedly would feel much the same sensation."

"I'm sorry." Jim did look incredibly contrite. "I truly had no idea. I'm so very sorry. We won't try that again." He stood, brushing the dust from his knees. "Let me borrow my mother's car and take you home. It's the least I can do."

John wanted, badly, to say that they'd just take a cab. But Sherlock was still crouched over, still rubbing his head, and so John said, "Thanks. That'd be nice."

"I'll meet you at the front steps; it'll be just a few minutes."

As they waited, John said, "Are you going to be all right?"

"Ask me after I've had paracetamol and sleep. But yes, I think so." Sherlock blinked, as if the streetlight was too bright—which it might well be. "He's telling the truth, by the way. He genuinely didn't expect that."

"I wouldn't have either."

Then Jim pulled up in a Lexus, and John dropped the topic and helped Sherlock into the back seat. Jim was a careful driver, at least, and though at Baker Street he asked whether John needed help getting Sherlock upstairs, he seemed perfectly content when John said no.

Sherlock took a huge dose of paracetamol and immediately went to his room. John sat up and read Sherlock's notes on the hotel registers and tried not to worry.


	12. 30 July - 31 July

The visit to the laboratory in Prague was as pointless as Sherlock had expected it to be. Mycroft's minions were not entirely incompetent—not that Sherlock would ever tell him that—and Sherlock's interview with the company's CEO only verified what data they already had: Macht had left at his usual time on 8 April, never to be seen again. By the time his colleagues arrived the next morning, his office had been emptied of files and computers, and all the materials relating to the drug had also gone missing, even the backup disks for the network. The lab security camera footage showed nothing—obviously doctored. When his flat was searched, it was found that he had ended his lease and sent most of his possessions to be stored in his sister's home (Claudia Haas, 37, doctor, married a German and moved to Karlsruhe). 

Macht's flat had already been thoroughly searched by the police and by Mycroft's people, and had since been let to a new tenant; his possessions at his sister's had also been searched. In the cab with John, Sherlock reread the inventory of stored items. No laptop, no desktop, nothing with more computing power than a microwave. No surprise there.

"Why am I here?"

That question, now, was a surprise. Sherlock looked at John. "What do you mean?"

"You don't need me for this. I don't speak Czech. Or German, or Russian. Unless Macht's fiancée is fluent in English, or unless we meet someone who wants to talk about trauma wounds in Pashto, I'm useless."

"Don't underestimate yourself. We might meet a Finn."

"How did you...oh, of course, the dictionary and the Tolkien translations." John grinned. "Okay, I'll be useful if we have to interview a Finnish speaker who wants to talk about Quenya. Now, why am I here?"

"You're here because Mycroft thinks I need you. Why does he think that?"

John turned away. "No idea. Oh, that's an interesting building."

Sherlock let John stare out the window for a few minutes before saying, "He thinks something is amiss with my mental state. You agree with him; you might even have given him the idea. Why?"

"Do we have to have this conversation in a cab?"

"John."

John still looked out at the buildings, but his shoulders slumped. Finally, he said, "We've both noticed that you're listening to people lately."

"I listen all the time; I can hardly help it, as long as people talk around me."

"Not just hearing people. You're actually doing what people tell you to do. When Lestrade asked you to come to that crime scene and when I told you to leave it; when Mycroft asked you to take this case...."

Oh, was _that_ all? "You're worked up over nothing."

"I'm just saying that it's odd."

"Since when have I ever done anything that I didn't _want_ to do? The dead child was an interesting enough variant on the bodies to merit my attention. I needed to go to the funeral home to gather the evidence; if I'd wanted to stay at the scene, I would have. As for this case, anything that stumps Mycroft is enough of a challenge to be worth my time. Are you satisfied?"

John turned his head to follow a group of cyclists. "Is that really why you agreed to do those things, or did you come up with those reasons after the fact to explain your actions?"

The cab stopped in front of a modest block of flats. "Don't be ridiculous," Sherlock said as he took out a handful of koruna notes and paid the cabbie.

Macht's former fiancée, Irina Bláhová, met them at the door ( _much younger than Macht; administrative job at a university; used to dance, ballroom or folk, but had given it up several years ago due to knee injury; either never wore an engagement ring or stopped wearing it soon after Macht's disappearance_ ). She spoke little English, but her German was much better than Sherlock's Czech.

"I had no idea that he was dead," she said to Sherlock, once they were all seated in her tiny kitchen ( _uncluttered but dusty; doesn't like cooking_ ) with coffee. "I thought only that he had left me for another, and so I was glad to see him depart."

"Did he warn you, then, that he planned to leave?"

"He told me that he must make a trip for his firm, that he could not tell me where he was going and therefore that he would not be able to phone me. But I had heard his phone calls, when he thought I was asleep or out of the flat. Her name was Anna; I never heard her surname. He told her that he was trapped, that he was desperate for her help. I thought, why could he not face me, if he wished so badly to end our engagement?"

"And so you were unsurprised when you never heard from him again?"

"Yes." Her voice was flat, disappointed.

John shifted in his chair, as if he found the slick vinyl as uncomfortable as Sherlock did. "Sherlock? Could you ask her if I might use her loo?"

She was all politeness and showed John down the narrow corridor, then returned to Sherlock. "It is such a shock; I am sorry. I cannot yet think clearly about it all. That he is not only gone, but _gone_...."

 _She is not lying, but she is holding something back._ "The night before he disappeared, the eighth of April, did he see you at all?"

"No. He told me that he would be working until late and that he could not see me." Irina shook her head. "I truly have nothing else to tell you. He said nothing about his work or his friends that could explain why he would have gone to the UK."

"And he left no papers, never borrowed your computer, left nothing here for safekeeping?" Mycroft's people had found nothing on her computer or on a cursory search of the flat, but....

"Nothing."

John returned and sat patiently while Sherlock continued the interview; no data, no real information, and yet, she knew more, she knew more and was not going to tell him.

So he ended it. "Thank you for your time, then. Let's go, John." At John's puzzled look, Sherlock rolled his eyes and switched back to English. "Let's go, John."

Outside, he handed John some cash and said, "She'll likely be more forthcoming with only one listener. There's a restaurant around the corner. I'll meet you there when I'm done." At John's annoyed expression, he added, "'Pivo'. That's enough vocabulary to run with while you wait."

John sighed. "All right. Before I go, though...." He handed his phone to Sherlock. "Have a look at this picture—it was leaning against the wall outside the bathroom. Anything about it look familiar?"

It was Irina Bláhová with Karl Macht, Macht in the same pose as in the doctored photo that his corpse had held. Sherlock inhaled. "John, you are irreplaceable."

"I know." John smirked. "No one else would put up with the rat stomachs in the fridge. Or waking up to the smell of burning MP3 players. Or...."

"Yes, John, you've made your point. Go eat."

He waited a few minutes, then slipped back into the building and opened Irina's door with the spare key he had taken from under the microwave.

She was still in the kitchen, head in hands and elbows on the laminate tabletop; she started as he walked in.

"Don't bother calling the police," Sherlock said. "I'm not interested in theft or assault. I want only information, this time without lies."

"I told you everything I know!"

"Except for two things. What did Macht borrow from you shortly before he disappeared? And who was the stranger who contacted you about him afterwards?"

Her eyes widened, and then she started to weep. A genuine outburst, not a play for sympathy, but it still grated. 

"Oh, for God's sake." He gritted his teeth and put on a sympathetic expression. "I don't mean to disturb you; I only need answers to these two questions, and then I will leave."

She rose and ran to the bedroom. Drawers opening and closing ( _hunting for something_ ); he waited.

When she returned, she was calmer. "This." She handed him a digital camera. "A few days before he left, Karl asked if he could borrow it; he said he wanted to take some photographs of friends. But I checked it later; he had taken no new photographs, or if he had, they were already deleted."

He took back his former thoughts about Mycroft's people; they _were_ idiots after all. "But they added to your suspicions. So when someone contacted you to say that they could take care of your philandering fiancé permanently, you listened."

Sometimes, a purposely inaccurate deduction made the interviewee eager to provide the correct answer; Irina proved no exception. "It wasn't like that. He called after Karl left; he spoke Czech with a British accent. He said his name was Richard Waters, that he was an old friend of Karl's, that he had not seen him in years. And he was so gentle when he heard my story, so kind. He said he was unsurprised, and that he knew someone who would be happy to take care of the problem, that if I sent a copy of a photograph of Karl and me together, his friend would find Karl's new girlfriend and show it to her. I emailed the picture, and I never heard from him again; the next time I emailed the address, it bounced. I did not think it was anything more than that...."

While she spoke, Sherlock fidgeted with the camera, surreptitiously opening the access panel and letting the SD card fall down his sleeve. "It was indeed nothing more," he lied serenely. "The autopsy showed that your fiancé died of natural causes." He handed her the camera and one of Mycroft's business cards. "But if Mr. Waters does contact you again, call this number."

He endured her shaky thanks, then left, pocketing the SD card. With luck, John would have learned the meaning of "pivo" well enough to be relaxed.

* * *

It was late by the time they returned to the hotel. In their room, John immediately fell on one of the beds. "God, what a long day."

Sherlock booted his laptop into protected mode and inserted the SD card. And there it was, in plain sight, a directory that would be ignored by the camera and by photo retrieval programs. "Not entirely useless, however."

"Glad you think so. Did she tell you anything helpful in the end?" 

He opened a couple of files to verify their contents, then copied over the whole directory and deleted it from the card. "A few things."

"Good. I'd forgotten how dull it is to listen to conversations you can't understand; I was so bored I was ready to start doing experiments myself."

Compress the directory, send to Mycroft, done. And now that they had time, "Speaking of experiments...."

"Oh, God." John covered his eyes. "No. We're in a hotel, in a foreign country; we do not need to find out what temperature will cause this pillow to ignite or whatever mad idea you have in mind."

He suspected that John would hate his actual idea even more. "I want to see whether you can put me in a hypnotic state."

"You're mad." John didn't move his hands away from his face. "Why?"

"Because I don't know whether Jim is the only person who can do it."

John sat up and echoed Sherlock's unspoken thought. "And if I can't, then most likely no one else can either. Good point." He looked unhappy, but clearly acquiescing.

Sherlock sat on his own bed. "Let's start, then."

"All right. Secant phenol metacarpal, three two one."

His mind immediately dropped into that simultaneously blurred and focused state, his eyes closed, his muscles relaxing.

A distant warm voice, slightly shaken. "God, that still freaks me out. Are you in a trance?"

"Yes," he replied.

"Okay, then." Four snaps.

Sherlock opened his eyes. "Why did you do that?"

"You have your data. I can put you in a hypnotic state."

Why did John look so uncomfortable? "It was completely unnecessary to stop."

"Sherlock, you know what this means? Anyone who knows that phrase could log into your brain and shut it down."

"That is an inaccurate description of the process. And we don't know that anyone can do it. You are a close associate and familiar figure; it's logical that my brain would respond to your use of the trigger." When John still failed to relax, Sherlock added, "We can test it further later. If all and sundry can hypnotise me with that phrase, well, since I could be conditioned to accept it as a trigger, surely it's possible to condition me to accept it only from a handful of reliable individuals. Now, as you clearly _can_ hypnotise me, let's see whether you can guide me into a regression. It would be interesting to see whether a different hypnotist makes a difference in the results."

"Fine, but I'm warning you now, I'm not trying anything that's made you double over screaming in the past." John took a deep breath. "Secant phenol metacarpal, three two one."

Again he was in the trance, calm, waiting.

The warm voice again, the voice that still filled him with joy to hear. "That staircase, or however it is that you go to your past life? Go down it. And don't hang about at your death; we're not doing that today. No Reichenbach, no great battle with Moriarty. Pick...oh, pick some event you think it's important for me to know about. As an observer, remember. Don't do anything that'll hurt you."

So easy, so easy to follow that voice, to do what it asked. Down the stairway, through the painful blur, past and past again, to the day Holmes had solved the case of Irene Adler.

"You told us about that one," the warm voice said, sounding puzzled. "That she left that portrait for the king, and that Holmes requested it in lieu of payment."

"Yes," the observer said. "Though the king still paid him handsomely as well."

"And then you said there was something blocking you from seeing the rest. Don't go there if it's going to hurt you."

"It does not. There is no wall now." Simply Holmes and Watson in the cab, and Watson's joke that Miss Adler must have been the only woman who could have suited Holmes, and Holmes' offhand response—not indifferent, though, not remotely indifferent. And Watson looking at Holmes suddenly, and falling silent.

Then they were in 221B, in the familiar sitting room. Holmes immediately set the portrait on a table, then went to the fireplace and filled his pipe. "You have your rounds to make, I presume?"

"Not for an hour or two yet," Watson replied, sitting in his old chair, "and Mary does not expect me before this evening. But I will certainly leave if my presence is unwanted."

"No, stay by all means." Holmes lit the pipe. "It has been a curious case, but I feel the dullness of ordinary life creeping back upon me."

"I fear I shall hardly help to stave it off, being most ordinary myself. Unlike the former Miss Adler." He studied the portrait, then said, "My dear Holmes, I should not have teased you so earlier."

"I am long accustomed to your notion of humour." He leaned against the mantelpiece. "Unlike you, I am not a man made for the gentler passions."

"Not made for the gentler sex, perhaps." At Holmes' start, Watson continued, "I have suspected for some years now. It is true, is it not?"

"What would it matter if it were? You know I care nothing about propriety for propriety's sake alone, but I am hardly so foolish as to think that I could ignore the laws that govern our society."

Watson chuckled. "Yes, those laws against housebreaking, vandalism, burglary—I have seen what esteem you hold for them. I have even been your assistant in breaking them."

"But only when the cause was just. We shall now cease to discuss this topic for fear of offending your delicate sensibilities."

"As a medical man, I assure you that my sensibilities have long since coarsened, and what the practice of medicine began, my army service completed. You would have had to be far more flagrant in your inclinations to offend me, and in truth you are remarkably discreet; if you have committed any such acts during the time we have been acquainted, if you have even at some time felt an attachment to someone, I am unaware of it."

Holmes answered only with the slightest noise of exasperation, turning to stare at the fireplace.

Silence, and then Watson sat up straighter. "Holmes. Oh, Holmes. I am most heartily sorry."

Holmes shook his head. "My dear chap, I have often exhorted you to apply my methods, but this is truly a poor time to succeed."

"I agree completely. I would that I had deduced this about you two years ago."

"And what would you have done if you had? You cannot make me believe that you yourself have such tendencies; you would not break law and custom to become my lover."

Watson paused. "Perhaps not. But certainly I would have spared you the pain of seeing me the lover of another."

"The celibate life has its advantages, but the idea that you would choose it...."

Watson was undeterred. "For you, yes." At Holmes' snort, he said sharply, "Holmes."

"You have at least chosen a partner worthy of my respect. There has been that comfort; I could not have borne it if you had chosen to give your name to one who did not deserve you."

"Holmes." Watson rose swiftly, stumbling only momentarily from his injured leg. "Turn around."

Still Holmes stared at the fireplace. "What more is there to say?"

"There is this." Watson gripped Holmes' shoulder and tugged until they faced each other. "I was yours first."

"Absurd." Holmes cleared his throat and continued more firmly. "We were fellow-lodgers, companions for a time; that is all."

"And like Lord St. Simon's wife, I made vows that I would have refrained from, had I known there existed an impediment. I owe Mary my worldly goods, my comfort and care, and my continence. But I swear this to you: if you need me, call, and I will follow wherever you ask." Watson took his hands. "I was yours first. I still am, and Mary knows it."

"Watson..."

Watson raised Holmes' hands to his lips, then released him. "To the ends of the earth, Holmes. If you call, I will follow."

And as Watson turned to descend the stairs, the scene evaporated, and Sherlock opened his eyes.

John's expression was unusually opaque. "Have Jim or I ever told you that sometimes you summarize Holmes and Watson's conversations, but sometimes you recite them? It's uncanny, how you make their voices distinct. I'd know that Watson spent time in Scotland even if I hadn't read that biography."

"John...." He did not know what to say. "I didn't...."

"It's fine." John managed a small smile. "Even if your cousin was in love with his assistant, it doesn't mean anything now; it's not like it destines you to cheat on your work."

"It's not that." Sherlock pulled up his feet to the bed so that he could rest his chin on his knees. "I wouldn't anyway. I don't like sex."

"So, you're asexual? I would never have guessed."

"Don't be sarcastic. And I don't like any form of physical contact. It's usually irritating, often painful, and generally unpleasant."

"Then why did you let Mrs. Hudson hug you, when we first moved into the flat?"

John would notice that piece of data, when he'd missed so many others. "Ask her sometime _how_ she developed that bad hip. Allowing her moments of demonstrative affection is the least I can do in return. But she's an exception." He felt like he still needed to—apologise? explain? In any case, he needed John to understand. "It's nothing to do with you. I just...don't."

"So, you're effectively apologising for the fact that I'm straight—"

 _Not entirely,_ Sherlock wanted to point out, but people tended to be offended when he deduced their sexual orientations, and now was not the time to see whether John was an exception.

"—and you're asexual or nonsexual or ergosexual or whatever you want to call it, and therefore in spite of the fact that everyone thinks we're together like that, we're never going to be together like that? What part of 'it's all fine' did you not understand?" John stretched. "God, I hate travelling east. Anyway, you'd have to expect it, that it'd shuffle around, wouldn't you? Maybe one life you're best mates, another you're lovers, another you're sister and brother, or parent and child. So even if I _was_ Watson then, that doesn't make...."

Irritation spiked, and he spoke before he could think. "You keep saying that. Why don't you think you were him?"

"I just don't." John shrugged. "We have a lot in common, but when I read about him, I don't feel like it's my biography."

"Why on earth would _that_ matter? We don't remember past lives; how could we have any 'feelings' about our past selves? I never had 'feelings' about my cousin's life." He needed motion to settle his mind; he jumped up and started pacing. "Look at the actual evidence. Unlike the overwhelming majority of humanity, you are someone whose company I can actually tolerate. You serve much the same function for me that Watson served for Holmes, down to the idiotic writing. You're fascinated by my methods, even when you don't quite understand them yourself. Who else could you have been?"

"Someone else who knew Holmes. Lestrade's great-grandfather. Inspector Gregson. Mary Morstan Watson. One of his Irregulars. Mrs. Turner—and if I was her, I've done my quota of cleaning up after you, thank you. One of his relatives, for God's sake."

He spun around at that nonsense. "Absurd."

John's spine straightened. "All right, if you're going to be that way, why do you _care_ whether I was Watson? What possible difference does it make _now_?"

That was enough and more than enough. Sherlock threw himself onto his bed and curled up facing the wall, limiting the sheer _idiocy_ flooding his senses. "Good night."

After several seconds of silence, John sighed. "You are such a child."

Sherlock ignored him, ignored the sounds of tooth-brushing and face-washing, ignored the click of the light switch, ignored the darkness.

_What difference does it make? It makes every difference. Reincarnation proves that bodies are mere transport and minds last forever. If you were Watson, then we found each other again, took up where we left off. I want to know that if you die before me and leave me alone again, that if I die before you and have to enter yet another life, that someday...._

_This is stupid and sentimental._

He wrapped his arms more tightly around his legs and waited for John to fall asleep.

* * *

John woke to find himself alone in the hotel room.

Sherlock's bed might have been slept _on_ but certainly not _in_. And Sherlock's laptop and suitcase were gone.

He fumbled in his jacket until he found his phone. Three texts, none of which had wakened him—how?

*Further investigations elsewhere required. Will see you at Baker Street. Probably on Sunday. SH*

*You'll want to switch the text alert back from silent mode. SH*

*I apologise for my brother. A car will be waiting for you at 8:30 local time. Mycroft Holmes*

"You bastard," John said aloud. "Both of you. You pair of useless...." He sighed. This would not get him anywhere.

He checked the time—7:30? it felt earlier...ah, right, Central European Time—and sent two texts, *where the hell are you?* to Sherlock and *don't i even get a morning to play tourist?* to Mycroft. By the time he'd shaved, dressed, and repacked, the responses had arrived.

*I suggest the ossuary in Kutná Hora; a long drive, but you have time to visit and return before your flight this afternoon. Mycroft Holmes*

*But if you prefer a different site, simply tell the driver. Mycroft Holmes*

*A6 outside Nuremberg. SH*

Right. *what time did you leave?? and please tell me you aren't texting while driving*

*Four hours ago. And of course not. Traffic has stopped due to an accident. SH*

*Not mine. SH*

Four hours. For a moment John considered following Sherlock anyway, then dismissed the idea. Too much of a head start to catch up, even if Mycroft's driver were amenable, and after all, he himself had told Sherlock that he wasn't of any help on this investigation. He might as well treat this as a short holiday.

And maybe Sherlock bolted because of the previous night, in which case chasing after him wouldn't help.

There was plenty of time in the car to think about that unexpected revelation. Why had Sherlock—or Sherlock's subconscious, which John wasn't entirely convinced existed, because Sherlock seemed so aware of every thought and certainly repressed nothing—considered that incident important? Was this an oblique way to tell John that Sherlock should be his first priority....

*Crashed vehicle is carrying shipment of Bulgarian rose oil. SH*

*Not close enough to see yet, but can already smell. SH*

*Also smuggling cases of Turkish raki. SH*

...as if John couldn't get the idea from his text messages? Or was it a request for reassurance, a reiteration of the mantra "it's all fine"? Did Sherlock really expect John to say _"Yes, Sherlock, I can put up with maggots in the freezer and stoat scent glands mixed with the laundry soap, but I draw the line at your carrying a torch for your flatmate in a previous life"_? Did he expect John to be _shocked_? It hadn't even been _surprising_.

And why was that? John wondered. Why hadn't he been at all surprised?

Maybe his gut feeling was wrong; maybe he really _had_ been Watson before.

*At the wreck. Smugglers so incompetent that police have caught them. SH*

John texted back, *sure they didn't just get arrested for bad driving?*

Sherlock's response was a photograph of a jack-knifed truck, police cars, and stacked crates labelled in Turkish.

 _Amazing_ , John thought. He texted that and then turned his attention to the scenery; he was, after all, supposed to be a tourist now.

When he got there, John immediately saw why Mycroft had recommended the ossuary; the bone sculptures were _fascinating_. After the tour, he texted Sherlock about it and added *you'd have liked it—too bad you couldn't come this time.*

*No matter; I'm probably still banned from there anyway. SH*

*banned?? what did you do, guess which bones came from the same person and try to saw them open to get DNA traces to check??*

*Don't be ridiculous. SH*

*I used a drill. SH*

*stop. i can't giggle in a church.*

He still had a few minutes before the driver was due back, so he went outside to the graveyard to walk.

It was a chilly day for the end of July, and most of the tourists were avoiding the graveyard, preferring the shelter of the building. Two people were walking between the graves, though, a hugely tall man built like a narrow gorilla and a much shorter man in jeans, bomber jacket, and baseball cap. The shorter man turned towards his companion, and John blinked. Was that _Jim_ behind those sunglasses?

"Jim!" he called.

The man didn't respond; he and the giant rounded the corner of the church, and by the time John caught up, they had disappeared.

 _I'm imagining things,_ John thought. _There's no reason why Jim would be here._

But the thought still nagged at him all the way back to Prague, and at the airport, he finally broke down and texted Mycroft. *is jim moriarty in uk right now?*

The reply didn't arrive until John had gone through security and was in line to board the plane. *There is no evidence that he has left the country. Mycroft Holmes*

Which meant it was nothing.

Or that Jim was so good he was able to hide a dubious past from Mycroft, and therefore travelling to Europe undetected was trivial for him.

He sent one last text to Sherlock before he had to turn off his phone. *thought i saw jim at that church, but m says still in uk. be careful anyway.*

There was no response. John told himself that meant Sherlock was still driving, and mostly managed to believe it.


	13. 31 July - 4 August

The last time Sherlock had been in Karlsruhe had been when he was seventeen, part of a long solitary holiday wandering through Germany. It had been in the early days of his experiments with pharmaceuticals; after attending a performance of _Tristan und Isolde_ in Hamburg—he still wasn't sure whether the choreographed folding and unfolding of deck chairs in the second act had been a hallucination or an actual part of the performance—his next clear memory was of riding the southbound train and mocking a man for being too cowardly to tell his wife about his foot fetish. The man had disembarked in Karlsruhe, and Sherlock, in spite of the nosebleed, had followed him long enough to confirm most of his deductions before passing out in a shrubbery. He had next awakened in the back seat of Mycroft's car, already halfway to Paris and three-quarters through Mycroft's patience.

This time, after he had passed the traffic accident, the trip to the city had gone without incident. Once in town, Sherlock had quickly found the home of Macht's sister, Dr. Haas; Mycroft's staff had obviously warned her to expect him, for she readily invited him in and showed him to the attic where she had stored Macht's things. She did insist on remaining there while he went through the boxes, but at least she read a medical journal on her laptop and didn't talk to him; her husband was more irritating, looking in every ten minutes, but Sherlock finally found the right glare to send him away.

There was nothing relevant in the first eight boxes, though Sherlock emailed himself the titles of several books to check out later and read with interest a stack of printed-out email correspondence between Macht and a Dr. Stapleton about the current state of genetic engineering. In the ninth box, though, was a framed picture, carefully packed in bubble wrap. Sherlock unwrapped it and stared at the photograph. 

Two teenaged boys stood in front of a house, holding either corner of an enormous drawing of a building that resembled the Sydney Opera House as redesigned by Yves Tanguy. One boy was clearly Macht.

The other was Jim Moriarty.

"That was what made me wonder whether he intended not to return," Dr. Haas said. She had set aside her laptop and was also staring at the photograph. "In his room at our parents', in his dormitory at university, in every flat he ever lived in, that picture was in his room."

"A close friend?"

"A favourite drawing; he never did forgive our mother for throwing it away." She looked at the photo for several seconds, then continued, "I don't know whether they were still in contact, but that whole year we lived in Germany, Karl and Jimmy were inseparable. I haven't seen him in years, not since Jimmy's family moved back to Ireland."

 _Extremely_ interesting.

Sherlock took the picture out of its frame and checked just in case Mycroft had sent incompetents here as well, but there was no sign of any hidden item in the frame or backing, at least nothing that he could detect with his own fingertips and eyes. But still....

Some hours later, when he'd finished looking through the rest of the boxes, he picked up the photograph. "I need to take this for further examination. We'll return it when we're done."

She acquiesced, obviously with reluctance—sentiment. Sherlock made a point of carefully rewrapping it in the bubble wrap to appease her concerns.

It was dark by the time Sherlock left the Haas residence; he considered driving through the night anyway, but when he turned his phone back on, a text from Mycroft with a hotel reservation and the note _on pain of arrest_ was at the top of the messages. Sherlock sent a rude response, but truly, the chance to sit and think for a few hours without the distraction of other drivers was welcome.

John had also texted; Sherlock would have considered it inane if he hadn't seen that photograph. He replied, *Warning noted, but mistaken impression is more likely than sudden appearance. SH*

But having _seen_ the photograph....

In the hotel, he reread the documents from Irina Bláhová's camera. The outline of the project. The chemical details of the drug—two drugs, technically; the first was administered once and acted as a primer, and then the second drug was given regularly to produce the actual effect. The notes from the tests. Trials, and trials, and further trials.

He texted Mycroft about the photograph and added, *Have read the research. You were robbed; this wouldn't work for intended purpose.*

This time, Mycroft phoned him in response. "You noticed that as well, then?"

"It would take weeks for enough of the drug to accumulate in the subject's system to have a noticeable effect. Hardly helpful when you need to find the location of a ticking bomb." A thought sparked across his mind; he set it aside for now.

Mycroft took a moment, presumably assembling his words. "The fact that this version is a failure does not bother me. Research often takes wrong turns before yielding useful results. What disturbs me is Macht's interest in stealing the research."

"Perhaps he wanted to slow them down so he could sell the preliminary materials to another firm?"

"Perhaps." Mycroft exhaled. "The people who initially checked Macht's possessions were far superior to the team that investigated his fiancée's home; I doubt that we'll find anything in the picture, but it is worth looking into. You want to drive home rather than fly, don't you?"

"Remind me, how often do I get to practice driving when in London?" And there was a city en route where he wanted to stop.

"Naturally. I'll see you tomorrow night, then."

Sherlock hung up and let himself return to the earlier stifled thought. The primer drug was relatively unstable, easily destroyed by heat or by digestive enzymes and acids, but it only had to be administered once, as long as the other drug was started within four to six days.

And the details on that second drug.... Weeks to accumulate. No noticeable flavour. Soluble in water; tolerant of temperatures well above the boiling point of water. Median toxic dose quite large; high therapeutic index if the primer drug was administered first, narrow index if not.

If he was wrong, he would attribute it to John's mistrust of Jim infecting his own mind. If he was right, this was going to be a _fascinating_ experiment.

* * *

John did actually enjoy the novelty of having the flat to himself; when he'd arrived home yesterday, he'd put Bruckner's Fourth in the CD player and started reading the books that Sally had left—reading between the lines of the available documentation, it was obvious that Colonel Moran had barely escaped a dishonourable discharge—and then watched the original version of _Sleuth_ , revelling in the plot twists and the lack of Sherlockian commentary.

That, however, had been yesterday. Today, the flat was too quiet. 

At least Sherlock had responded to his text, albeit in typical Sherlock fashion, and had later texted to say that he'd be at least one more day. Which wouldn't really bother John that much, if he only knew where exactly Jim was.

 _Apply logic_ , he told himself. No point in calling the Barts IT department, since it was Sunday. And he didn't have Jim's number and was not about to text Sherlock asking for it; he didn't even know where Jim's flat was, but....

Twenty minutes later found him at Mrs. Moriarty's house, knocking on the door and feeling like an idiot. The feeling didn't lift when she opened the door. "Good afternoon, Dr. Watson."

"Hello, Mrs. Moriarty. Look, I'm sorry to bother you at home, but do you know whether Jim's in town?"

She actually laughed. "James is well past the age where I can demand his itinerary. He has no hypnotherapy sessions scheduled for the next two days, though, if that is any answer."

Again, insufficient data. "Yes. Thanks."

Mrs. Moriarty studied his face for a moment, then stepped back. "Come up for a few minutes."

She brought him again to the sitting room overlooking the front door. Again there was music, this time voice and orchestra. The singing floored him, the desperate struggle of the male voices and the soprano, the soprano's determined resolution; he had never heard this piece before, he was certain, and yet, he _knew_ this music.

At the final chord, he turned to Mrs. Moriarty. "What _is_ that?"

"The finale of _The Flying Dutchman_." She grinned as she took the disk from the player. "The plot suffers from characters jumping to conclusions rather than asking questions, but one doesn't listen to opera for the plot." She picked up another CD from one of the shelves. "How do you like Sibelius?" 

John realized he was still standing and sat down in one of the easy chairs. "Don't know; I haven't heard any."

"We'll try his second symphony, then." After starting the CD, she sat in the other chair and looked expectantly at him. "Now, did you have an urgent need for James' services, or was there some other reason you wanted to find him?"

"It's nothing, really. I just thought I saw him somewhere." 

"And thus you crossed town on a Sunday afternoon looking for him. Dr. Watson, please do me the courtesy of a more plausible cover story. 'He owes me money' is very traditional. Or a simple 'It's personal' would suffice."

Her tone was light, but John read the faint warning in her expression. "It's private," he said.

"Then I will not pry. Would you like me to phone him?"

"No, that's all right. If I don't see him before then, I'm sure Sherlock'll have another appointment with him in a few days." But if Jim was wherever Sherlock was right now....no, he didn't have enough information to accuse Jim to his own mother; he didn't even know whether Mrs. Moriarty could be trusted, whether she might be helping Jim, assuming he was actually doing anything....

John shook his head and made himself listen to the music. It was quite pleasant; subtle, and not triggering the recognition that the Wagner had, but still worth listening to more than once.

At the end of the first movement, though, he made himself speak up. "Sherlock said, after the first time you and I talked, that you wanted to consult him, that you had suspicions...." He should be able to spit this out, to tell her that if Sherlock was right—and how often was Sherlock _wrong_?—he had the same suspicions. He rubbed his jaw. "Did you? Want to consult him?"

"I did. At this time, however, I prefer to handle the situation on my own and only hire your friend if I absolutely must."

John sat up, obscurely offended. "Do you want a go-between? Believe me, I know he's a colossal prat, and that's when he's on his best behaviour. But he really is brilliant; whatever your problem is, whatever you need help with, he'll figure it out. If you want to just give him the initial information and then go through me for the rest of the investigation, that'd be fine; I'm happy to do it."

Mrs. Moriarty smiled suddenly. "If I decide I do want to consult Sherlock Holmes, I will certainly contact you. But we shall see; it may not be necessary." She rose. "I won't keep you any longer. Why don't you borrow the Wagner? Take as long as you need to listen to it; I have other recordings."

He checked the time—yes, he really needed to get back to the flat, in case Sherlock came home today. "I'd like that, thanks."

Downstairs, as she opened the door, she said, "There is something you might think about."

John paused on the top of the steps. "Yes?"

"The concerns that brought you here looking for James, and the suspicions that I considered bringing to your friend? They may well be related. Good day, Dr. Watson." She closed the door.

* * *

It was early afternoon by the time Sherlock had located the correct archive in Strasbourg. 

He had briefly toyed with the idea of going to Switzerland; a bit of a drive, but, compared with the distance to London, not that much of one. But he had set the idea aside. It was too much of a detour, and Mycroft would undoubtedly interfere with a side trip to Bern. And certainly Sherlock was not about to visit Reichenbach itself; erosion had changed the site since 1891, and he would not blur his mental image with the modern state of the falls. It was a perfectly rational reason, he told himself again.

Strasbourg, however, was barely an hour away from Karlsruhe, certainly en route to London. In April of 1891, Holmes and Watson had spent two days there while waiting for the arrest of Professor Moriarty's gang. As long as Sherlock was so close, as long as it was really on his way back to London, why shouldn't he check for hotel records?

If Sherlock had believed in Murphy's Law (which he did not; he believed in entropy, of which Murphy's Law was a simplified interpretation), he would have been unsurprised to find that the archive he needed was closed until Tuesday.

He considered the possibility of staying an extra two days in Strasbourg—on his own funds, since Mycroft would likely be a stickler about using public monies, and without John. He considered the visible security on the building.

Twenty minutes later, he was in the stacks, looking for the right shelf.

There it was, the registers for the Hotel Lavoisier. According to court testimony, the Yard had telegraphed Holmes here to let him know that the gang was captured but that Moriarty had escaped. Undoubtedly his cousin, being a chemist, had also appreciated the hotel's name. Sherlock found the volume covering the end of April and examined the signatures.

And there they were, 27 April 1891, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, still under their own names during this part of their flight. Two days later was the distinctive handwriting of Professor Moriarty, obvious in spite of the pseudonym—and Colonel Moran, again under his own name.

Sherlock flipped forward a few days. And there was Moran again, on 9 May, and then on 22 May—that had been a few days before Watson's trial. And...interesting, Moran had stayed in this hotel on the 22nd of each month following. June, July, August...Sherlock checked the next volumes. Even into winter, into 1892, 1893, 1894.... And after 22 March 1894, nothing.

Watson had died on 30 March 1894.

He would definitely have to look for hotel records from Bern; this data, while not definitive by any means, was certainly suggestive.

Sherlock reshelved the registers, exited the room, and nearly crashed into two police officers in the hallway.

He barely had time to text *may be delayed* to Mycroft before his arms were seized and his hands cuffed.

The next several hours were horrible, and the moment when he was taken into an interview room to find his brother's assistant waiting—well, at least it wasn't Mycroft himself, but Sherlock would delete this evening from his memory as soon as possible.

"I'm to escort you home," Anthea said as they left the station. "I already retrieved your things from the rental car."

There was no use in running away; he threw himself into the waiting car and sulked as she got in the other side and the driver pulled away.

Forty-five minutes later, when he was sure his point had been made, he considered the experimental possibility before him.

On the one hand, she was his brother's assistant, with all that implied; if he gave this information to her, Mycroft would have it soon afterwards.

On the other hand, this needed testing, and John would be happier if Sherlock could give him data.

He found a scrap of paper and scribbled, then said, "Anthea."

She looked up from her Blackberry, an unusual event. "Yes?"

"Say these words, followed by 'three two one', and see how I react. And then, snap your fingers four times."

She read the paper, showing no surprise. "Secant phenol metacarpal, three two one."

There was pressure in his head, like the beginning of a headache, but no trance. "All right. Thank you."

"You're welcome." She snapped four times, and the pressure immediately faded.

Good enough, Sherlock thought. John would be relieved.

* * *

John felt much better when he heard footsteps on the stairs; he went down to the living room saying "It took you long enough to get—bloody hell!"

He had Jim in a headlock before his brain registered more than _intruder._

"Don't hurt me!" Jim sounded genuinely terrified.

But John held his grip. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"My mother said you wanted to see me! Your landlady let me in! Please, let me go!"

 _Fine._ John released him and stepped back, ready for a retaliatory move. "It's eleven fucking thirty! You couldn't have called?"

Jim rubbed his neck. "I'm sorry! I don't have your number."

"You could've asked Sherlock."

"So could you, instead of bothering my mother." Jim shook his head. "But anyway, I'm here."

Oh, Christ, he was going to have to improvise. Or simply tell the truth. "Sherlock and I have just been in Prague for a couple of days; I thought I saw you, and I wondered what you were doing there."

"Me?" Jim giggled. "Why would I have been in Prague? Not that it isn't an amazing city, but no, if I were going there on holiday, I'd still be there. You can't have seen much—two days? That's hardly any time at all."

"It must have just been your doppelganger, then."

"Or someone made a golem that looks like me." Jim giggled again, then sobered. "I don't know why I laughed there; it really isn't that funny. Well, that's settled, then, but I do wish you'd leave my mother alone."

"She didn't seem to mind." And if she had, she would undoubtedly have let John know.

"She wouldn't." Jim looked at the floor. "I don't like to talk about this, but, well, don't put too much stock in what she says. She's a bit...off. Age, you know."

That did not ring true with what John had seen so far. "She seems fine to me."

"You haven't spent that much time with her. She appears normal on short acquaintance, but if you're around her for longer....she has these paranoid ideas. And her mind really isn't all there anymore."

Jim sounded so certain, and after all, he _did_ spend far more time around his mother than John did. And yet....

_Do I trust this man enough to let him hypnotise Sherlock without me? No. Then why the hell should I believe anything else he says, if I don't have supporting evidence?_

"I'll keep that in mind," John said. "If she starts acting oddly, I won't take it personally. But I like her; if she invites me in to visit, I'm not going to say no."

"All right." Jim's tone didn't match his words. "I'd really rather you not, though."

Tough luck. "If you're worried about whether I can be trusted with the not entirely mentally competent, ask Sherlock for his opinion."

"That's true." Jim studied him in a manner far too reminiscent of Sherlock. "Staunch moral core. Rather like another John Watson, or at least like his persona."

Not this again. "I don't think I was him."

"Are you sure? The friendship you have with Sherlock certainly resembles Watson's friendship with Holmes, minus the possible murder. And just between us, while I could imagine my great-uncle as Holmes' murderer, I'm not sure Sherlock's truly ruled out the possibility that Watson did it."

"All the more reason to think that I'm not him."

"Well, if you ever want to try a regression to confirm, I'd be delighted to work with you. But no pressure." Jim looked around the room. "You know, I've always wanted to see the inside of 221B. This room—Holmes paced this floor; Watson sat by this fireplace; they both walked up and down those stairs. Amazing. Pity about the wallpaper, though. Have you ever thought about renovating, to make it look like it did in the 1880s?"

With what funds? "No," John replied.

"You really should consider it." Jim went into the kitchen and turned around, looking at the cabinets. "Of course you wouldn't want to turn this back into a bedroom; you don't have your landlady cooking for you like they did. But you could put back the mouldings, maybe change the flooring to wood...."

"With Sherlock's experiments?" John shook his head.

"Enough coats of polyurethane, and it'll last forever. You should consider it; the bones of these rooms, the structure, they're still good, and you could make it look incredible." He came back into the living room. "Well, good night. I'm sure I'll see you and Sherlock in a few days."

John finally went to bed a half hour after Jim left, but he couldn't sleep. He was still reading Sally's book a bit after two when there were footsteps on the stairs again. He went downstairs, this time with gun ready, to find Sherlock dropping his suitcase in the middle of the living room. "Welcome home," John said, tucking the gun away.

"I hate my brother," Sherlock replied, heading for his room. "I'll see you in the morning."

* * *

Sherlock scheduled another session with Jim the Wednesday after his return.

Once they were settled in Jim's office, Sherlock handed Jim a copy of the photograph found with Macht's body. "You know the man in this picture."

Jim's forehead wrinkled, and then his mouth opened. "I do," he said after a pause. "That's Chuck—Karl's his real name. Karl Macht. I went to school with him for a while." He glanced at John. "You remember when I told you about my schoolmate who did the amazing drawings? This is him. Oh my God, Sherlock, he's not dead, is he? Or is he a suspect in one of your cases?" 

Was Jim feigning ignorance? It was actually difficult to tell. "No, I'm afraid he's been dead for some months."

He summarized the finding of the first body, watching Jim's face. The grief at the death—that was genuine, Sherlock was certain. The shock, though, felt just the slightest hint off; nothing that Sherlock could point to with certainty, no telltale hesitation or exaggeration... Further observation would be needed.

Jim visibly pulled himself together. "I'm taking up your time with this when we should be working. I'm sorry."

"Would you rather we come back another day?" John asked. And that sympathy was genuine too, for all that John distrusted Jim.

"I'd rather think of something else right now." Jim reached into the bowl of beads on his desk and let the coloured glass fall over his fingers. "Why don't we try something from one of Watson's published stories today? We haven't done that in a while."

Sherlock entered the trance without difficulty, and his mind took him to the denouement of the case retold in " _The Sign of Four_. It was not really that different from Watson's retelling, other than more swearing on the prisoner's part. He floated above the room listening to Mr. Small's story, watching Holmes nod knowingly at several revelations. And afterwards, when Watson broke the news of his engagement, he saw, as Watson did not, Holmes' subtle signs of anguish, quickly repressed.

Four snaps woke him; Sherlock stretched, feeling vaguely guilty—ridiculous; Holmes' reaction was perfectly logical, and there was no reason to feel bad about it.

Jim said, "I'm sorry, I forgot to offer you any tea earlier. Would you care for some?"

"Yes, thank you," Sherlock replied. "And John will as well."

John's eyes widened, but he said, "All right, yes," waiting until Jim's back was turned to mouth _what the fuck?_ at Sherlock. Sherlock simply held up a hand and shook his head, and John subsided. He drank only part of the cup, but that would suffice.

Once they were on their way home, though, John said, "What the hell was that about?"

"Nothing," Sherlock lied serenely. "You keep nagging me about my manners; turnabout is fair play."

"Oh, come on. Is this one of your demented experiments? Did you get tired of me being the control group and decide to make me the subject?"

"Really, John, if Jim _is_ somehow drugging the tea, don't you think I'll notice if you're affected?"

John paused, clearly thinking. "Yeah, you probably would."

"Well, then. Unless I tell you to worry, you don't need to worry."

"And if you do tell me, it'll be too late." But John seemed satisfied.

 _Game on,_ Sherlock thought.


	14. 6 August

On Friday, when John returned from errands and food shopping, he unlocked the outside door to the sound of a _thunk_ , and another _thunk_ , coming from upstairs. Mrs. Hudson opened her door as John entered. "He's been at it all afternoon, I'm afraid."

"At what?"

She looked up the stairs and shook her head. "I really don't want to know."

John opened the flat door and immediately dropped to the floor as a projectile sang through the air. "Jesus, Sherlock, what are you doing?"

Sherlock lowered the crossbow. "Testing the capability of books to act as armour."

Indeed, three books hung from the wall, pierced by bolts, and two more lay on the floor. Several more books pierced by ordinary arrows had been piled in the kitchen, a longbow leaning across the top, and another stack of books showed evidence of... "What did I tell you about using my gun?"

"So far the London A-Z is superior at blocking longbow and crossbow shots but inferior at stopping bullets."

What books was he using, anyway? Oh, thank God, not any of Sally's. "So far? How much longer do you have on this experiment?"

"The next phase involves testing the dispersive power of larger projectiles. You did remember to buy the eggs, right?"

"Yes. Do I need to bother putting them in the fridge?" 

"Set them over here."

So, he was going to be cleaning up raw egg later tonight. God, why had he ever thought it was a good idea to live with a madman?

 _Because, actually, this is interesting,_ said a traitorous part of his mind.

Interesting, yes, but....

_Thunk._

...not to be encouraged, and not conducive to a peaceful afternoon. John went upstairs and texted Sally. *please tell me there's a crime somewhere. your books are in danger from bored Sherlock. bored Sherlock is in danger from me.*

Six thunks later, she responded. *There's always a crime somewhere. And I have the day off, so I don't give a damn. Need an excuse to escape?*

*any reasonable one. or unreasonable.* 

The next reply had a link to a map. *Attached location around 3:30 feasible? Preferably without CDF?*

The address wasn't too far away. *location: yes. sh-less: probably; can't promise. but thank you.*

He gathered up her books, considered the noise from downstairs, retrieved his gun—Sherlock had put it back in the correct hiding place, anyway—and tucked it into his waistband under his jacket. When he went back downstairs, a book was propped up on the desk in front of a line of eggs; at least there was newspaper underneath. Sherlock, now balanced on the back of one of the chairs—how was he not knocking it over?—fired a ping-pong ball from a slingshot; it knocked over the book, skimmed a centimetre over the eggs, and bounced off the bookcase and wall before rolling across the floor. Definitely time to leave. "I'm going out," John said. 

Sherlock took another ball from his dressing gown pocket. "Good. Your constant breathing is ruining my aim."

 _Wanker._ "I'll make a point of dying so that won't be a problem, then. See you tonight."

* * *

The address Sally had sent him was in a quiet street lined with offices and the occasional block of flats. She was waiting for him in front of a grey brick building; the front door was boarded over, but there was a surprising lack of graffiti and posters.

"Here you are," John said, handing her the books. "Safe from wind, weather, and whatever projectile Sherlock's got in his slingshot at the moment."

"You're being literal, aren't you? Have you ever read _Murder Must Advertise_?"

"No, but I saw the Ian Carmichael version once. I don't _think_ Sherlock has any scarabs."

Sally shook her head. "Remind me to lend it to you sometime. Rumour has it they'll do it in the next season of the reboot along with the Harriet Vane stories—I can't wait. But I didn't invite you here to rave about Freeman's Wimsey." She waved at the building. "Guess what this is. There's a hint on the second story."

He looked up at the line of windows, the carved stones at their upper corners, shaped like lanterns.... "This is the Diogenes Club?"

"It used to be; they're at a much posher location now. But the club still owns this building."

"Must be well off to afford the council tax. And the maintenance. Any entrances?"

"Not on this side." Her eyebrows lowered. "I really need to not know what you're thinking about."

He grinned. "Don't worry; it's more Sherlock's area than mine."

"That's more like it. Anyway, I thought you'd be interested in the building. You need to get back to Pym's Publicity, or do you have time for a coffee? I want to hear how your research project's coming along."

He thought about telling her about the Prague trip, but shied away from the idea; besides, since Mycroft was involved, it was probably classified somehow. So as they walked, he told her about the hotel registers, about Professor Moriarty's pseudonyms, about Colonel Moran.

When they were seated in the coffee shop with their drinks, Sally said, "Don't tell the C.D.F. I said this, but it sounds like he's doing some decent research."

The table wobbled as John set his cup down. "It's not all that different from what he does with a regular case; there's just fewer photographs of corpses."

She snorted. "So, he's pulling some magic trick out of the air?" She deepened her voice. "'Nothing in my hand; nothing up my sleeve; presto! here's your suspect, but I won't tell you how I found him because you're too stupid to understand.' Yeah, if he was like that with his tutors, there's no chance that he finished university."

"It's not magic. It's observation and logic."

"Oh? Then why doesn't he tell _us_ how to do it?"

"Because it's not that easy to explain!"

"Hey, no need to get your knickers in a twist. If he wants to be mysterious, that's his business."

"Sorry." _Why am I so upset, anyway?_ "But it's really not mysterious. He just...sees things we don't."

Sally laughed. "What, does he have ultraviolet receptors in his retina or something? Look, I know about observation; I'm a bloody police officer. What he does...." She took a swallow of coffee, then continued, "I _want_ to know how he does it. I want to know how he can look at me and tell that I've had an argument with my mum, look at Lestrade and know when he's gone to a folk dance workshop, look at a suspect and know they're the right person or the wrong one."

"It's amazing, isn't it? I could never do anything like that."

"How do you know you can't?" Sally asked. "Have you ever tried? You've lived with him for six months now; _something_ has to have rubbed off."

"Well...." John pretended to look at the large orange abstract painting across the room, and studied the woman two tables over. "The woman in the brown print blouse. She's married, obviously, unless she's wearing the ring to fend off lads on the pull. But I have no idea what she does or...."

"University faculty," Sally said. "Probably Lecturer."

"What?"

"Three journal issues, two books, and a hundred index cards? She's writing an academic book." She gestured to her left. "How about the bloke in the black t-shirt?"

That one was easy. "Construction worker—his hard hat's on the floor under his chair. There's a renovation a couple streets north of here; he's probably working there. The man in the dark grey suit."

"Accountant, or at least I hope that's why he has that ledger. There but for the grace of God go I. Man in the yellow shirt."

"With the green smudge on the sleeve?" He thought for a moment, and then recognized the colour. "Florist. And has a cat."

"What makes you think...Oh, the bag of litter."

"And the scratches on his hands; they look too deep to be from rose thorns. The young woman with the spiky red hair."

"Student. Probably reading philosophy. Just broke up with her boyfriend."

"You're making that up, aren't you?"

She raised her eyebrows. "You tell me why else she'd have books by Heidegger, Kant, and Schopenhauer; if she's not a philosopher, she's a masochist. And trust me, one chocolate croissant would be a snack, but three is a breakup. The woman in the black shirt."

The books were definitely telling. "Another student. Reading art history. Has a kid."

"Two kids."

"Two?"

"Board book and story book? Might be the same kid, but more likely it's two."

John chuckled. "You're better at this than I am."

Sally crumpled her empty cup. "Can't know that without verifying. And I'm not about to go up to complete strangers and ask them what they do for a living. You don't see C.D.F. doing that, do you?"

"Actually, yes, I have. I've had to rescue him before he got his face punched, too." He grinned at her chortle, then added, "But this is what he does. He just has more data stored in his mind than we do, that's all."

Sally shook her head. "It's more than that. What we just did, any halfway competent constable could do. What _he_ does—that's something unreal."

John's phone chirped. "Sorry," he said, checking the text. *Need another dozen eggs. SH* "Christ, is he making projectile custard? I'd better get back to Baker Street before Mrs. Hudson really does evict us. Thanks for showing me the building."

"You're welcome. Hey, if I find any books with more information on Colonel Moran, I'll let you know." 

A man walked in with a school-aged girl and an indeterminate toddler. The art history student looked up at the girl's call of "Mummy!" and held out her arms.

John looked at Sally; they both started laughing. "Two. You win this round," John said. "See you later."

Outside, he paused. From here it was out of his way, but.... He turned and walked back to the old Diogenes club.

Months of following Sherlock had at least given him a few hints on looking inconspicuous. He didn't loiter in front of the building, but walked through the alley as if he belonged there.

In the back of the building were a ground-floor door, solid except for a peephole, and a fire escape, which Sherlock undoubtedly could have scrambled up to but which John couldn't reach without a ladder or two uninjured shoulders. The keyhole on the door looked unusual, though, a bit larger than John would've expected. Big enough to fit...well, why not try it? He pulled out his keys, found the lantern-bowed one, and inserted it.

The key turned, and the door opened.

 _It's not really breaking and entering if I have a key,_ John told himself. _Trespass, maybe._

The entry was dim but not entirely dark; windows near the high ceiling let in just enough light to show the surprisingly non-dusty green carpet and the walnut-brown panelling. There were three doors, all locked and none accepting his key, and a narrow spiral metal staircase. He walked up the stairs to the first landing and another door, this one unlocked.

A long corridor, again panelled in dark wood with paler trim; faint light entered the corridor through a doorway halfway down. When John reached the doorway, he found a large empty room, smelling of old books in spite of its vacancy. Tall windows admitted sunlight; faded wallpaper showed the light's path through the days. He inhaled, feeling both prepared for danger and utterly safe, and reminded himself to stay away from the windows; no need to let people on the street below see him.

The remaining doors along this corridor were again locked, and again did not accept his key. At the far end of the corridor, though, was another unlocked door and another spiral staircase.

The next two floors held only locked doors again; it was like hunting through an abandoned hotel. The fourth floor landing also ended at a locked door, but this time John's key worked, and beyond....

Near the ceiling ran a line of stained-glass windows spelling out something in Greek letters. Brilliant gold and red light poured down and spilled over a room that ran the length of the building, over the long wall and the shelves that covered it floor to ceiling, over the safety deposit boxes that sat on every shelf. 

God, this could take weeks—were they even in any order? Not that he could tell. Blank boxes were interspersed with labelled ones. He read name after name. R. Brailsford; H. S. Lennox; B. A. Thwaites; J. Ellis; M. Barraclough; R. E. Ffolkes; wait, could that be...no, no way, not given how sociable he appeared in interviews—than again, they were called "actors" for a reason....

The door on the other end of the room rattled.

John had his gun out and was in firing stance before he had a chance to think. There was no cover in this room, nothing but the wall of shelves and boxes, nowhere to hide....

A familiar voice shouted on the other side of the door. "This is the police. Open up, John Watson; I heard you in there."

He replaced the gun and opened the door. "Sally?"

"I knew you'd come back here. I'm not official yet, but the people at the office across the street were debating whether they'd seen a prowler in here. Thanks for leaving the door open, but you need to...oh my God, the boxes do exist."

"Yeah. How much time do I have? There's no order to these whatsoever."

"Five or ten minutes from whenever they get off their arses and call 999." She walked up to the boxes, scanning the names. "Look for a darker nameplate; I'd expect the older ones to be more oxidized."

A minute later, Sally said, "This one," at the same time John said, "Here we go, M. V. Holmes."

"Same initials on mine." Sally stepped back and glanced over. "Yours looks too new, but try the key anyway."

The key refused to budge. "All right," John said, suppressing a sudden dreadful thought as to who else might have those initials, and tried the other box.

After a moment's resistance, the key turned.

The box was nearly empty, save for one thin envelope. "He can't have had much to say for himself," Sally said. 

John took the envelope carefully. It wasn't sealed; inside were four typed sheets.

"We should go," Sally warned. But she was looking over John's shoulder at the text.

"This shouldn't take more than a minute or two." He began reading.

* * *

> It is the custom for each member of the Diogenes Club to write his thoughts on his life and his deeds, and to place these writings in the Honesty Boxes for preservation, that he may always have one place where he can state the truth without fear of repercussion.
> 
> Though I am a founding member of this club and have spent many of my happiest hours of the past forty years within these walls, I have never before had need of the Honesty Box myself. I have no profound truths to impart to an indifferent world. My habits are simple; my joys and sorrows are ordinary. In virtue and vice alike I have been an unexceptional man, possessing only a skill with figures and an eye for details to differentiate me from the mass of humanity.
> 
> But of late I find myself wishing to speak about one topic that weighs on my heart: the death of my brother Sherlock, twenty-five years ago today. The evidence was clear, the evidence of _who_ and _how_ , and yet, I am now uncertain.
> 
> I have wondered often, though what-if is a pointless exercise, what if I had insisted on accompanying Sherlock to the Continent? I did offer. He refused, but the delight he showed at my even considering the idea.... What if I had travelled with him instead of Dr. Watson? Would he still be alive now, sharing the horrors of these days? ...on balance, I am grateful that he was spared this, that the shield he kept about his sensitive soul was never subjected to this test.
> 
> But still I wonder. Dr. Watson claimed innocence. Lately the thought haunts me: what if he spoke truly? What if—a useless phrase. History is finished, uneditable.
> 
> Why did I not go to Reichenbach myself, to see what had come about, to see Watson? For I do not doubt, now that it is far too late, that had I seen him, I should have known whether he lied or was truly innocent. It is uncomfortable to doubt, after being so long certain.
> 
> What leads to my doubt? A letter I have received from Mr. Joseph Moriarty, noting that his uncle James perished on the same day as my brother while travelling on the continent. The James Moriarty who was alleged in the trials to be the leader of that gang, the Moriarty who slipped through the nets of Scotland Yard and utterly vanished, the Moriarty who my brother said was responsible for so many ills....
> 
> This is the fact which haunts me: He died, on the Continent, on the same day as my brother.
> 
> It is perhaps only a coincidence.
> 
> But how did he die? Mr. Moriarty did not say, and I certainly cannot order an exhumation to find out, if indeed any evidence remains after twenty-five years.
> 
> (The reports on Sherlock's body were clear enough—the broken skull and ribs, the water in his lungs, the battering from the maelstrom and the rocks. And yet I still knew his face, even water-swollen and bruised, when his empty and decaying shell was brought back to London. Inspector Lestrade said he was certain my brother lost consciousness as soon as he struck the water, and that the terrible battering caused him no pain, for he was already forever beyond its reach.)
> 
> The second cause of doubt: I have finally read the stories Dr. Watson sent me from prison, the tales of my brother and his cases. I had long pondered what to do with them. Publish them that my brother's work may be remembered, even in the words of his convicted murderer? Destroy them unread? For now that I have read them, they only increase my sense of doubt. The respect for Sherlock's mind and work, the great affection that Dr. Watson held him in—could a man capable of such feeling have also been capable of murdering the object of said feeling? 
> 
> My brother told me of the deception he enacted, pretending to be ill so as to trap a heinous poisoner, fooling Dr. Watson into believing that he was dying; told me how, afterwards, Dr. Watson had coolly and politely taken his leave. "I insulted his medical skills as well as his intelligence," Sherlock said to me. "I fear I have stepped too far." And yet, Dr. Watson was willing to go with him when he called.... I have thought for so long that it was for revenge, but I wonder now, was his spirit truly so forgiving, that he came because he was Sherlock's friend?
> 
> There are not enough facts, and all explanation must await that day when the dead will be raised incorruptible and shall give up their secrets. I cannot avoid the conclusion, though: had I been willing to _act_ , rather than content to merely observe, matters might have turned out quite differently. Perhaps Sherlock would be alive now, an old man, but using his talents to solve crimes or even to spy in France and Germany. Perhaps Dr. Watson would be revealed innocent and would live yet, his reputation and liberty restored.
> 
> Perhaps I would have shared my brother's end in the maelstrom.
> 
> I have at last taken the simplest route and placed Dr. Watson's stories in the hands of fate: they shall be left to an archive with my personal papers, unedited and uncensored. Once again, my action shall be to not act.
> 
> I should have acted. If I, rather than Dr. Watson, had gone with Sherlock, he might still be alive. Or if another did murder him...well, they would have found me a harder weight to push over the cliff's edge, and perhaps I could have been the anchor to hold Sherlock in this world.
> 
> It is useless to speculate. My brother is long dead. My sole heirs are a cousin and his children, whom I have not seen since Sherlock's funeral. Dr. Watson is dead, whether a guilty man or an innocent. I am old, and thousands of young men are bleeding to death in France, and my personal sorrows are as nothing compared to the horrors that mount daily.
> 
> My doubts will be resolved soon enough. I have only to wait.
> 
> Mycroft Vernet Holmes  
>  4 May 1916

* * *

"Damn," Sally said. "Poor bastard."

John folded the papers and put them back in the envelope. "Does it count as burglary if I borrow these long enough to photocopy them for Sherlock?

The sirens outside interrupted them.

"Shit." Sally's fists clenched. "Lestrade's going to sack me for breaking and entering. Can I kip at your flat after we get out of prison?"

The plan flashed into his mind, as if he'd been thinking about it since he'd entered the building. "Got your warrant card? Handcuffs?" 

"Always."

"Arrest me. Make it look real."

She took only an eyeblink to process that. "John. If I do it, it _is_ real."

John exhaled. "I know. Do it anyway."

Sally nodded and pointed. "Those stairs. Start running."

John tore out of the room.

He was faster than she was, bad leg and all, so it came as a complete surprise at the bottom of the stairs when her feet slammed into his shoulders and knocked him down. She had his hands cuffed behind his back before he got his breath again. "You daft bastard," she hissed.

He managed to turn his head enough to look up at her. "Why exactly am I not dating you?"

"Because you're a package deal with the C.D.F., and you're madder than he is. Oi, who's there? Davies? Yeah, help me with him. Yeah, he's Sherlock Holmes' flatmate. I can't wait either."

John let them haul him out to the waiting police car, realizing only as he sat down that his gun was no longer in his waistband. Damn, Sally was good.

Damn, Sherlock was going to be furious.


	15. 6 August - 9 August

The liquid chromatograph and mass spectrometer finally ejected their results from the third sample. Sherlock stood and stretched, noting a slight twinge in his shoulder; today's archery practice had involved long-unused muscles.

He had finished his last projectile experiment an hour after John's departure, and had then gone to Barts to start his real research of the day. Not that the projectile data hadn't been useful, probably even worth John's anger over the gun, but this analysis was far more important.

Sherlock spread out the printouts and compared them. There was certainly _some_ mysterious compound in his blood and his urine; of course, without a known sample to compare with, he couldn't make any identification, but there were suggestive similarities to several of the atypical antipsychotics, which meshed well with Macht's notes. 

He started the equipment resetting process and went down to the morgue; if he remembered correctly...yes, Molly Hooper was working late tonight, making notes on a woman in her fifties ( _cause of death clearly anaphylactic shock from an allergic reaction, but to what? oh, of course, hazelnuts_ ).

Molly looked up; her face suddenly flushed. "Hi, Sherlock. Where's John?"

"Oh, you remember his name now?" Where _was_ John? Sherlock took out his phone and texted him to ask, then pocketed it again. "He's out. Where are the results from Macht's blood samples?"

She blinked, then searched the computer for a few minutes until she found them. "Don't you already have copies?"

"Of course, but they're at home." No, there was nothing in Macht's own blood that suggested the mystery drug. "When you were dating Jim Moriarty, did he ever talk to you about childhood friends?"

"No, never. But we didn't really go out for that long; we mostly talked about work. And architecture. And...never mind."

He reviewed what he retained of his most recent conversations with her and realized what she was avoiding. "You may be interested to know that since our last discussion of the topic, I have substantially revised my opinion on the validity of reincarnation. So. What did you find out when he performed a past life regression on you?"

"How did you...."

"Molly, we both know that you do actually have functional neurons, so please drop the pretence of complete stupidity."

Molly sighed. "I don't know what I found out."

That made no sense. "What do you mean?"

"Just a minute." She went to her handbag and hunted until she found her phone, then spent a few more minutes searching for something on it. Sherlock clenched his teeth and waited.

At last, she said, "Here, listen to this."

A recording of her voice spoke, sounding terrified and determined. _"This is so I won't ever try this again: I don't want to know about my last life. I was a Victorian gentlewoman; I was married twice and widowed twice, gratefully both times; I had a daughter and granddaughter who outlived me; and that's all I want to remember."_

Jim's voice came faintly in the background. _"Are you sure about this? If the memory troubles you so much, I can hypnotise you to remember it without pain."_

"I'm sure. Make me forget."*

The recording ended.

"You should've taken his offer," Sherlock said. "You could've kept the information. Now you'll always wonder what could've been so bad."

She shook her head. "I don't think her life was _that_ awful. I think it was just too much, having her in my head too." At Sherlock's raised eyebrows, she continued. "Jim told me that I'd been fine as long as I was observing her from the outside, but that when I went into her mind, I broke down. And when I talked to Jim's mother about it...."

"You've met her?"

"Yes, she asked him to bring me up to her rooms after we finished. She said it sounded like I'd realized knowing about my past life would interfere with my present life, and that in that case it made sense to forget. I liked her, but I haven't seen her since Jim and I broke up. Do you think she'd mind a visit? Since it's not as if I dumped Jim, not really...."

Dangerous territory. "I am the last person you should ask about that area of etiquette."

"Oh. Yes, well...." Molly turned back to the computer and shut it down. Without looking up from the blank screen, she said, "I never had a chance with you, did I? You've been John's ever since the day you met."

Sherlock thought of Holmes' embarrassed confession, Watson's steady response. "Not in the way you're thinking," he finally said.

She shook her head. "I've seen how you look at him. If you had ever looked at me like that, I'd...well, you haven't. You won't. Even if you did, he'd always come first for you."

What was he supposed to say to that? There was nothing to deny, nothing to debate.

Finally, he said, "Molly, would you do something for me?"

The noise she made was part laugh, part sob. "What do you need?"

"About five millilitres of your blood. Or a urine sample if you don't like needles, though the blood seems to work better."

Three hours later, he had the chromatography results. No sign of the mysterious substance; granted, she had broken up with Jim over three months ago, but the half-life of Macht's test drug suggested that traces might still remain if she _had_ been dosed. Therefore, she most likely hadn't. That was...good, he supposed, though it would have been interesting to compare. 

John still hadn't replied to his text. Or to the one following. Or the next eleven. Though given the time, perhaps he'd gone to bed and turned his phone off, never mind that Sherlock hated when he did that. Well, Sherlock was done here for the night, and he could always wake John when he got home. And after another session or two with Jim, he'd get samples from John and see whether he'd indeed ingested the same substance.

* * *

John leaned his head against the wall in the holding cell and listened to the singing drunk man in the next cell. Go all night indeed; the man didn't seem to have stopped or changed tunes since John had dozed off a few hours ago.

Fortunately, this wasn't the same station John had been taken to when he'd been mistakenly arrested for that graffiti in March. It would have been far too embarrassing to be remembered. As it was, he was still recognized. (Constable: "Isn't he that mad consultant's partner? What's DI Lestrade going to say?" Sally: "That I arrested the wrong one, I expect. And I'll say I was hoping to nick his flatmate too, but no luck.") There had been the usual paperwork, the reminder that he had the right to consult a lawyer and use the bathroom and so forth, and finally the escort to the cell to wait.

The clock across the hall said 6:47 when a constable opened the cell. "Dr. Watson? Come with me.

Finally. John followed the constable into a familiar setting—interview rooms all felt the same, no matter the nominal differences in decor. He sat in the appointed chair.

A few minutes later, another constable opened the door. "In here, Mr. Holmes, Detective Sergeant Donovan."

As they entered, John said, "Sherlock, you'd better not be...." Oh, _damn_. "Mycroft."

"John." Mycroft nodded as he sat on the other side of the table, gesturing for Sally to take the other chair. His expression was more unreadable than John had ever seen. "You may leave us now, constables."

When the door closed, Mycroft said, "Your audacity amazes me."

John shrugged. "I entered a building that I had a key for. It's not like I decided to re-invade Afghanistan."

"So that's what Sherlock found embedded in the wall of your flat. I had wondered."

"Oh, you _don't_ keep a camera in the elk?"

Mycroft did not smile. "I have arranged for your release; you will not be charged with any crime." He glanced at Sally, who looked both relieved and irritated. "Nor will you experience any professional repercussions for your arrest of Dr. Watson; the records will show that it was a reasonable response to the concerns of neighbours, and no one will know that you did not immediately remove Dr. Watson from the premises."

"How..." Sally began, then shook her head ruefully. "Yeah, you would keep a camera in the building. I thought I'd seen one. You're a member, aren't you?"

"Yes. It's family tradition, yet another that Sherlock has been unwilling to avail himself of." Mycroft drew himself up. "And as a member of the club, I must insist that you return the material you and John stole from my cousin's box."

Sally glanced at John, and at his nod took the envelope from her handbag and held it out to Mycroft. Mycroft turned his head away and held out a larger manila envelope. "In here, please."

"You don't want to know what your cousin had to say?"

"The Honesty Boxes are sacrosanct. That you both have broken their confidentiality does not mean that I need to do the same." He fixed his gaze on Sally. "Nor does breaking one rule or one law condemn you to abandon your own principles ever after. Take your actions as a warning that you are capable of becoming what you fear, not as licence to become what you fear."

Even John could tell what word Sally mouthed silently.

Mycroft did smile at that. "My brother and I do indeed share certain talents of observation and thought." His smile faded. "To maintain the privacy of the boxes, I must also insist that you destroy the photocopies and scans. I will take care of the copy you emailed to Sherlock."

John blinked, but decided not to argue; it was Sally who said, "If the original Mycroft Holmes had wanted the letter to stay eternally secret, why didn't he destroy the key, or chuck it in the Thames? Why would he have gone to the trouble of getting whoever owned 221 Baker Street to let him hide it in the wall there?"

"If he had wished it to be revealed, he would have left it with his other papers."

"Not necessarily. Maybe he wanted it found, but not until long after everyone concerned was dead."

Mycroft sighed. "Detective Sergeant, we may debate my late cousin's motivations for weeks and never be able to come to an answer."

"Unless we hypnotise his reincarnation," John murmured.

Sally snorted. Mycroft raised his eyebrows and continued. "As matters stand, I must fall back on what is certain: the rules of the Diogenes Club regarding the Honesty Boxes."

After a pause, Sally said, "All right. I'll shred the copies and delete the PDFs."

"And the OCRed text, and the summary notes."

She rolled her eyes. "You want John and me to erase our memories of it as well?"

"It is, sadly, not feasible even with current technology." He rose. "You are both free to go. I suggest that Dr. Watson return to Baker Street immediately before my brother throws a tantrum. Detective Sergeant, you may wish to avoid my brother for the next several days."

"Next several years, more like," Sally murmured as Mycroft left. She looked at John. "Need a ride home? Or would you rather catch a cab?"

"Ride'd be great. Thanks."

In the car, Sally finally said, "I shouldn't have let you take all the blame."

"Don't worry about it. If I hadn't gone in the building, you wouldn't have either." His bad shoulder was starting to ache; no surprise there. "Where'd you learn to take someone down like that?"

"Standard police training plus several years of martial arts classes."

"Useful against criminals."

"And occasionally against constables." She quickly added, "No, I don't care to talk about it."

"All right." He redirected his curiosity. "So when you handcuffed me, what did you do with...."

"Don't. Don't you dare confess."

He sighed. "Fine. Let's _imagine_ that I'd had a gun with me when you arrested me; what would you have done with it?"

"This is strictly hypothetical, but if I knew someone who broke into a building while carrying an illegal firearm, I'd say he didn't have enough common sense to be allowed to carry one."

Oh, come _on_. "This is not remotely hypothetical. When you follow Sherlock Holmes around, you end up in a lot of situations where a gun would be very useful."

She shrugged. "Have him find one, then. Hell, have his brother find a way to make it legal for you." She slowed to let a couple with a pram cross the street. "He's not what I'd expected. I didn't think he'd be so much like Sherlock. Is he serious about the copies?"

"Yes. If you don't destroy them yourself, you'll come home to find them gone anyway." 

"Damn. No wonder he acts like he owns the world." She turned onto Marylebone. "He can't keep me from looking for Mycroft the First's will, though. Dr. Watson's prison stories? I would _love_ to get my hands on them."

"Even if they're as bad as his published books?"

"Absolutely."

By some miracle, Sally found a parking space close to the flat and got out of the car with him. "Might as well get the insults out of the way now, so I don't have to deal with them at the next crime scene."

"Good plan," John said.

When they entered 221B, the air still smelled faintly of egg, though the table had been cleared and the wounded books piled underneath. Sherlock was in his pyjamas on the couch, Thinking Pose 3b; he ignored both of them. John rolled his eyes as he took off his jacket. "And hello to you too. Sally, do you want some tea?"

"I'll get coffee at the shop before I go to work. Is Mrs. Hudson likely to be around, you think? I wanted to say hello to her."

Sherlock suddenly spoke. "John, come over here."

John turned on the kettle and obediently went to the sofa. But Sherlock didn't ask for phone or laptop or handkerchief (John had firmly drawn the line at holding it while Sherlock blew his nose). He simply remained still for a moment, then glanced at John and sniffed the air. Abruptly, he sat up. "Show me your hands. No, palm up." He stared at John's hands, then said, "Sally, what were you thinking when you arrested him? Never mind, trick question. If your third in history hadn't already demonstrated that you're incompetent at evaluating evidence, this would have confirmed it."

Sally's expression was not one John had ever seen before, not even at their first meeting, and Sherlock's tiny smirk said that he had absolutely intended a cut to the jugular.

Fury straightened John's spine; he inhaled and spoke completely calmly. "Your deduction is wrong. She arrested me because I asked her to."

"Is she your Mary Morstan in this life, then? Following you around and indulging your little kinks and taking you away from me?"

"Not fucking dating," Sally snarled. "Not fucking _fucking_ either. Not fucking competing with his bastard of a boyfriend."

Sherlock leapt up. "Not welcome in this flat anymore. Get out and don't come back, even with a search warrant."

"Sherlock," John said, "it may surprise you to know this, but you're not the only person who lives in this flat."

"I'm the only one who matters."

"Fine, I'm leaving," Sally said. "John, give me a call sometime, yeah?"

"Definitely." He waited until she closed the door, calculating the distance between his fist and Sherlock's jaw and the force of four different angles. "Sherlock? For your information...."

Sherlock interrupted him. "You left the flat with Sally's books; clearly you were going to meet her. You were gone all night. You didn't answer your phone. And then Mycroft's assistant texted me and said that you'd be home in the morning. What was I supposed to think?"

Legitimate question, and right now John didn't give a damn. "That I might be in trouble and need help? Which you clearly weren't arsed to provide."

"You didn't text me when you were arrested!"

"Because the police took my phone. Mycroft obviously knew where I was." He remembered one of Sally's comments in the interview. "And Sally emailed you."

"I deleted it unread."

That took care of Mycroft's concerns, anyway. "Well, then it's your own fault, isn't it? Anyway, I'm home now, and I'd like to sleep in a bed and not hear retching on the other side of the wall, thanks."

He strode up the stairs and closed his door firmly, telling himself that he did not feel at all guilty. Not in the slightest. Not even the faintest hint.

* * *

Sherlock did not speak to John for the next two days.

It was a challenge. Four times he'd had to interrupt his thoughts to get up and retrieve a phone or computer or cup of tea, and each time it had taken at least twenty minutes to resume his position and rejoin his train of thought. And John simply ignored him and played annoying music—he had bought his own copies of those CDs he'd borrowed from Mrs. Moriarty—and read. At one point John asked him whether he had a copy of his cousin Mycroft's will, and when Sherlock didn't respond said that he'd ask his brother Mycroft instead; the prospect of Mycroft had driven Sherlock off the couch and into his files, and a few minutes later he had thrown copies of both his cousins' wills onto John's keyboard and had returned to the couch. 

The arrival of a couriered package on Monday morning was a relief. Sherlock cleared some space on the desk and spread out the new package of hotel records.

"Where are these from?" John asked.

No point in continuing the silence if John was finally going to be relevant. "Bern," Sherlock replied.

John had already spotted the interesting data. "There's Colonel Moran, on 23 June 1891. Huh, and on 23 July. 23 August? September? He had a pattern, didn't he? Why was he in Bern on the 23rd of every month?"

Sherlock flipped forward through the stack. "Every month up to March 1894. And again on 29 March 1894, the day before Watson died, and then nothing."

John looked up, clearly surprised. "He was visiting Watson?"

"Without the prison's visitor logs, there's no way to tell for certain. But it's one potential explanation."

There was another knock outside. Sherlock glanced out the window—oh! "Lestrade has a new case for us."

Indeed, almost as soon as Mrs. Hudson opened the front door, Lestrade was running up the stairs. "Sherlock! It's a new posed body."

Oh, come _on_. "So arrest Andrew Elkins again."

Lestrade paused to catch his breath. "The body _is_ Andrew Elkins. And he's been dead for maybe three hours. Will you come?"

Sherlock looked at the hotel records. A new twist to the case—yes, there had indeed been another person involved besides Elkins, and yet....

"Yes," John said firmly, "you're coming, Sherlock."

...and yet, the hotel records would keep. "Don't dawdle, John." 

He ignored the look John and Lestrade gave each other.


	16. 9 August - 20 August

Elkins had been found in an office building; someone had noticed the open door of a vacant suite and had discovered the body, suspended from a hook in the wall by a pair of braces around his neck. Fortunately Lestrade had had the sense to tell Anderson to leave the body hanging until Sherlock's arrival.

Sherlock immediately concluded that Lestrade was correct; the body couldn't have been hanging for more than two or three hours. On the floor beneath lay an ancient newspaper—the _Birmingham Post_ , dated 15 June 1889. Also interesting were the pattern of scuffs on the floor; even more interesting were the large finger-marks about Elkins' neck.

Anderson stood to one side, humming off-pitch as usual. Sherlock was about to hush him when John said, "Don't take this wrong, but Robert Plant sang that a lot better than you."

"Fuck off." Anderson sounded friendly, though, which was odd. "So which do you think was the cause of death, the noose or the bloke with giant hands?"

"Tried to do it by hand, then gave up and switched to the noose?" John suggested.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. Idiots. "While Elkins patiently waited to die? Hardly. Look at this—no sign of a struggle; if he'd been killed here, his feet would have left dirt or scuff marks on the wall. He was killed elsewhere, then brought here and hung to look like he'd been hanged."

"Right," Anderson said. "Carried in while everyone's arriving at work? Yeah, I think one or two people would've noticed."

"Of course he wasn't openly carried in; use your brain for something besides fertilizer for your hair. Lestrade, what other businesses have offices on this floor?"

"An estate agent, a solicitor's office, and a uniform hire service. And yes, we're talking to...."

Click. That was what those straight tracks in the carpet were. "The uniform hire service. Of course. No one would notice someone pushing a laundry basket into the building. Security camera footage?"

"No. The cameras were sabotaged."

"Perfect!" Sherlock clapped his hands to control his excitement. "It's still the same people. Whoever Elkins' accomplice was—or more likely, whomever Elkins was the accomplice of—arranged the scene." He looked at John for his reaction, but John was looking about the room, a deepened line on his forehead. "John? Are you listening?"

"Yeah. That makes sense." When Sherlock bent to examine the floor further, though, he heard John say quietly to Lestrade, "Where's DS Donovan?"

"Interviewing the people in the other offices." Lestrade's voice lowered. "Christ, John, where did you... come on, I wouldn't suspend her for _that_."

"No, of course not. Mind if I go and talk to her for a minute?"

"Go ahead. Tell her about the laundry basket theory while you're there; she'll want to ask the interviewees about it."

Sherlock felt faintly betrayed as John left, then refused to pay attention to that silly balance of neurochemicals, focusing back on the corpse. "They were very thorough. Notice how clean his fingernails are? He must have grabbed at his strangler, but they made certain no traces remained, or at least nothing your labs will easily detect." Anderson sniffed at that; Sherlock ignored him. "Difficult to judge the footprints at this point, but I'd guess at least two people arranged the scene. One very tall, one average or below average. That should give you enough to work from for now."

"That's it?" Lestrade looked pained.

"I'll text you if I find anything else."

Sherlock left the room and looked up and down the hall; this direction was more likely...yes, there they were. John was saying to Sally, "...so I looked it up, and their building was bombed out in the Blitz, and they closed down afterwards. So it's another dead end. Sorry to put you to all the trouble for nothing."

"Not necessarily nothing. I mean, it's not _promising_ , but maybe they didn't store their papers in the same building where they had their offices. Look, there's an archivist I know from a case we did last year; she won't necessarily know anything about _this_ archive, but she'll know who I should ask."

John's voice sounded cheerful. "Step back and let the expert do the detective work, you mean?" When Sally suddenly frowned and tilted her chin, he turned. "Sherlock. Did you find anything else?"

"I'm through here. Come along." He walked away, listening. Five steps, ten, finally John saying, "I'll see you later, then," and following him.

As they stood in the lift, John said, "I like Sally. Just because you don't, doesn't mean I'll stop talking to her."

He kept his hands in his pockets, letting the familiar texture of the linings soothe him. "Who you choose to converse idly with is none of my concern."

"That's correct."

The rest of the day was filled with the usual investigations, mostly fruitless. Interviews with Elkins' co-workers at the funeral home revealed nothing; ditto interviews with Dennis and Carolyn from the homeless network, though they promised to contact him with any news. 

The marks on Elkins' neck, however, triggered his memory; after hunting through the attics of his mind, Sherlock finally recalled the report on professional assassins that he had found on Mycroft's desk once. Breaking into the secure databases yielded the name: Oscar Dzundza, nicknamed "The Golem", citizen of the Czech Republic, not currently known to be in the UK. He sent the name to Lestrade nonetheless.

* * *

That night Sherlock dreamed again of Watson's trial, of Watson's silence before the testimony of Stehli and Moran. This time, though, both his cousins stood behind the witness stand, one lean figure and one obese, unseen and unheard, talking to each other and deducing the habits of the judge and jury. But when he called them, begged his cousin Sherlock to tell the judge of Watson's innocence, they only walked away through the walls.

Sherlock ran through the wall after them and found himself running up the path to the Reichenbach Falls. Again his cousin wrestled with Professor Moriarty; again Sherlock was too late to stop his cousin's fall. He knelt at the cliff's edge, staring into the spray, then looked up to see his brother Mycroft and Jim.

"Why are you wasting your time on this when you could be doing something useful?" Mycroft asked.

"You still can't solve it, can you?" Jim added. "All my help, and you still can't see what really happened. You're useless."

"Leave me alone!" Sherlock shouted and woke.

He lay in the dark, letting his breathing ease, listening for John's footsteps on the stairs and being half-relieved, half-disappointed at their absence. For a moment he considered asking John to hypnotise him again, then decided against it; he would see Jim on Wednesday, and he could tolerate one more night of bad dreams in the meantime.

* * *

"What would you like to focus on today?" Jim asked.

No question in Sherlock's mind as he set down his tea. "I want to find out why people believed Holmes and Watson had had a falling out. I want to see whatever incident planted that in people's heads."

John gave him an odd look but didn't say anything, holding his teacup as if he expected it to turn into a centipede.

"All right." Jim smiled and turned down the lights. "You know the drill. Secant phenol metacarpal, three two one."

The peaceful darkness; the short pain. Then he floated in the room that would one day be the kitchen of 221B but was now Holmes' bedroom.

The lilting voice spoke. "Have you reached the incident?"

"Yes," the observer replied.

"Then tell us about it, but only observe. What ruptured the friendship between Holmes and Watson?"

"A case, of course. A hellish case. Holmes set out to entrap the evil Culverton Smith by feigning symptoms of poisoning. And when Watson learned he was ill and arrived to treat him, Holmes refused to allow the examination, refused to allow Watson into his confidence, insulted Watson's professional skills...." The observer chuckled dryly. "If Holmes had actively tried to alienate his friend, he could not have chosen better actions. Watson was polite and understanding in the presence of Mr. Smith and the police, but once they were alone...."

They stood in the sitting room of 221B, facing each other like two wild stags ready for battle. 

"By God, Holmes! You are most fortunate that I did not bring my revolver as I so often have done; else the next mysterious case would be that of your own murder! How dare you presume so on our friendship?"

"It was necessary, Watson. Your transparency, your inability to hide your thoughts...."

"Then if I am unable to hide my thoughts, you are now undoubtedly perfectly aware of what I think of your deception. Was it also necessary to insult my medical skills?"

"Solely to keep you at a distance, I assure you. I knew that a close examination would immediately tell you...."

"It would tell even a mediocre doctor with a failing practice that you were lying about your illness, indeed! Do you know _why_ my practice is small and mediocre? Because I have kept it deliberately so, that I might be better able to accompany you on your investigations! And in return for that....it is not to be borne."

"My dearest Watson, I had no intent to hurt you."

"Well, sir, your shot hit home nonetheless. We shall hope that it is less deadly than a Jezail bullet."

True concern crept into Holmes' voice. "I am very sorry, Watson. Please allow me to buy you dinner as a penance."

"I regret that my time would be better spent improving my practice. For it is not my own dinners that concern me now; I must also see to the care of _my wife._ Good evening, Mr. Holmes."

Watson was halfway down the stairs when Holmes called out, "Watson!" He paused on the stairs, long habit forcing him to obey; he turned to face Holmes.

"Watson, truly I am most heartily sorry. I never wished to cause you pain."

"I shudder to think what you would have done if you _had_ wished to cause me pain. Good evening."

And as Watson slammed the door, Sherlock fell out of the trance and opened his eyes, his heart racing.

"Well." Jim sounded fascinated. "That would explain it, wouldn't it? If my best friend did that to me, I'd want to kill him too."

"Watson didn't kill him," Sherlock said automatically. "He wouldn't have even if he _had_ had his gun."

"Can't blame him for wanting to, though," John said.

Jim's eyebrows rose. "You aren't as infinitely forgiving as your predecessor, I see."

"He didn't sound infinitely forgiving to me. How long was it until they spoke again?"

"Months," Sherlock replied. "The story in my family is that they didn't meet again until the flight to Europe in April 1891, though I find that idea exaggerated."

"Hmm." Jim scooped up a handful of beads from the bowl on his desk and poured them back, a tinkling rainbow. "I would like very much to see that scene from Watson's point of view."

John met their stares with a frown. "Wasn't Watson. Can't help you."

Sherlock refused to respond; if John wanted to believe something so self-evidently wrong, logic clearly wouldn't change his mind.

But Jim still tried. "You don't know that," he said gently. "Maybe you're right; maybe you weren't him. But until you actually regress, you can't be certain."

John set down his nearly-full cup of tea. "And funnily enough, I'm okay with that."

"Because you still don't trust me. Perhaps you need a demonstration." Jim stood and came around the desk, picking up John's teacup. He tilted it back and gulped, finishing it in a few seconds. As he set the empty cup back down, he said, "Do you still believe I'm trying to poison you?"

"I don't know. You could've spent the last twenty years building up an immunity to iocane."

Before Sherlock could ask what on earth John was talking about, Jim giggled. "Point taken." He sat down next to John on the couch, and couldn't have missed John's flinch, but clearly chose to ignore it. "I give you my solemn word that if you decide to try a past life regression, I will not take advantage of the hypnotic state to harm you, mislead you, or otherwise influence you. What you see, if anything, will be your genuine former self."

John stood. "If I change my mind about trying it, you'll be the second to know. Sherlock, let's go."

"I'll be out in just a minute." When John grudgingly left the room, Sherlock said to Jim, "I know you're not poisoning me. But someone is drugging me."

Jim frowned. "Whatever makes you think _I'm_ the one doing it?" And then, so quickly that Sherlock wasn't entirely certain he'd seen it, Jim winked. "Anyway," he said as he extinguished the candle on the desk, "if I were drugging you, you'd have time to get over it; unless something changes at work, I won't be able to do our next session for at least two weeks. Of course, if something changes, I'll let you know."

"Of course," Sherlock replied. Perhaps two weeks would be enough time to convince John to finally try regression himself.

* * *

On Friday of the next week, John entered the kitchen to find the floor flooded. "I didn't do it," Sherlock called from under the kitchen sink, water pouring out around him.

"Right," John said. Nearly two weeks without progress on Andrew Elkins' death had clearly driven Sherlock to boredom. John retrieved the kettle without quite soaking his shoes and went to fill it from the bathroom tap. "Shall I get Mrs. Hudson?" he asked.

"It should be elementary. Some PTFE tape, a spanner, and....oh, for Christ's sake, why won't this _seal_?"

"I'll take that as a 'yes', then." John said as he went downstairs.

Having notified Mrs. Hudson of the urgent need for a plumber, he returned to the flat and drank his tea as he watched Sherlock wrestling with the spanner. "You know," John said, "that water running across the floor is probably a biohazard. We may need a special squad to contain the area."

"Hush." Another turn of the spanner failed to stop the spray.

"Also, I applaud your quick thinking, using my clean laundry as a barrier to keep the water contained. My own fault for leaving it down here. You're taking it to the launderette later, just so you know."

"John, I said hush!" The water suddenly stopped spraying. "Odd," Sherlock said, inspecting the pipe. "That shouldn't have worked."

He couldn't help the grin. "It didn't. Mrs. Hudson turned off the main supply."

Sherlock banged his head against the floor of the cabinet. "Of course. I should've realized."

"And that means, by the way, that you can't take a shower."

"Redundant." Sherlock pulled himself out from under the sink and shook the water from his hair. "Hand me a towel, would you?"

This just kept getting better. "I think they're all doing Thames Barrier duty."

At Sherlock's growl, John relented and retrieved the last hand towel from the bathroom.

Mrs. Hudson came in as Sherlock tossed the soaked towel onto the floor. "Boys, I've called a plumber; he'll be here by this afternoon...oh, Sherlock, what did you _do_?"

Sherlock frowned. "Absolutely nothing except turn on the tap."

She looked sceptical, but said, "Well, the pipes _are_ old; I suppose they just rusted through. But Sherlock? _Please_ clean up this mess and tidy up before the plumber gets here."

Time for an exit. "Thanks, Mrs. Hudson. Sherlock, I'll see you tonight."

After that start to the day, the surgery was stiflingly dull. One sprained ankle, four ear infections, one chronic migraine, a bladder infection, two mysterious rashes, and two sinus infections. John found himself half-hoping that some patient would have a heart attack, just a small one, so he'd at least have something interesting to do.

When the last patient left, he sat at his desk and shook his head. "What am I doing here?"

He jumped when Sarah replied, "I've wondered that ever since I interviewed you."

"God, I didn't hear you come in. Sorry." He rubbed his eyes. "How's your Wimsey viewing group?"

Sarah smiled smugly. "I won the pool on the Harriet Vane casting. I'm free from beer duty for the next season." She sat down across from him. "Why did you ever become a doctor?" 

John looked at her, puzzled. "Why does anyone become a doctor? Because we want to help people."

"No. If that was all, we'd be nurses. Or social workers, or advice columnists, or teachers, or anything that takes fewer years of training." She shook her head. "I know why I did it. I wanted to solve mysteries."

He couldn't repress a chuckle. "What, like Sherlock?"

She raised her eyebrows. "Well, perhaps more like the police. But it's the same idea. We're presented with a puzzle; we gather clues and evidence, and we combine that with a broad range of knowledge to find solutions." She grinned. "Did I ever tell you about the pathology teacher I had in medical school? He was obsessed by historical medical cases. Every other day he'd give us a write-up of some 19th century or early 20th century patient and ask us to diagnose. Didn't actually care whether our diagnosis matched the historical one, as long as we could support our reasoning. I loved it; it was almost as much fun as diagnosing an in-person patient."

"Sounds interesting." Sounded fascinating, actually.

"It was. I remember one that might appeal to Sherlock. It was a poisoning in 1907—this man had pricked himself opening a box that had a concealed needle, and he died a few days later. His wife was interviewed, but she didn't know anything about the box; it was a curio they'd picked up somewhere. We were supposed to come up with what the poison could have been based on his symptoms."

"Oh, yes, Sherlock would _love_ that. Or else he'd ask why we were wasting his time when the poison was obviously X." Which would still be fascinating, to find out how he'd arrived at that identification. "Do you still have a copy somewhere?"

"I'll have to check my files. But you see? We're solving mysteries."

"Except with less mortal danger."

"Not necessarily. Anyone who walks into this surgery could carry a dangerous and infectious disease; ours isn't a perfectly safe profession." She shrugged. "We're doctors. We do the same thing Sherlock does. Only our enemies are microbes and accidents and the failures of people's own bodies, and his are criminals."

"But if our work were like his, then I wouldn't...." John stopped.

"You wouldn't want to quit?"

"No! I wouldn't be bored."

Sarah looked sympathetic. "I told you when you first applied that you were overqualified."

He sought for a joke. "Pity I was underqualified at dating."

She did laugh at that, but the sympathetic look didn't disappear. "We never had a chance."

"I wouldn't go _that_ far."

"Oh, I would. Tell me, if I'd walked in here wearing nothing but a smile, and at the same time Sherlock texted you, what would you do?"

"Ignore the text, of course."

Sarah shook her head. "I've known you too long to believe you."

He finally had to surrender. "Okay, ignore the text, spend the next ten or fifteen minutes giving a dismal showing of my amatory skills, and finally beg off and find out what Sherlock wanted."

"Exactly. I won't waste my heart on you when yours is already given."

"Look, Sherlock and I aren't...."

"Oh yes you are. You might not be fucking—don't look so shocked; medical school didn't erase my Germanic vocabulary—but you're certainly together. Search the internet and you can probably even find a word and a support group for whatever it is you two are." She stood. "If I find the write-up about that case, I'll scan it and send it to you. Good night."

The conversation prodded at John all the way home. There was no denying it: given the choice between following Sherlock on a case and doing anything else, well, earning rent money still came first, but otherwise, John was going to be right there watching Sherlock's mind at work, because he couldn't imagine anything more fascinating. And honestly, sometimes—often—Sherlock's work won out over the rent.

And it did not mean that he'd been Dr. Watson in a previous life. As if he'd have to have known Sherlock in a past life to appreciate him now—wasn't the man's brilliance in this life enough justification? If they'd become friends quickly, well, they suited each other; it didn't mean they'd already become friends a hundred and twenty years ago, just as his comfort in Baker Street didn't mean that he'd lived there in a past life. Though as he walked up the stairs to the flat, he did have to admit that he'd grown attached to the place faster than to anywhere else he lived. 

When he opened the flat door, he thought for a moment that Sherlock must have moved out.

No, the insect specimens and bat were still on the mantelpiece, and Sherlock's books still filled the shelves. But the floor was clear. No papers, no evidence bags, no disassembled electronics. The kitchen table did at least hold a dissecting pan with a partially eviscerated songbird, but nothing else.

Then Sherlock emerged from his room, carrying a full rubbish bin and a piece of pipe.

John ignored the sense of relief. "What happened?"

"Are you experiencing the typical middle-aged deterioration of vision already? I cleaned up."

He had to sit down. The dual thoughts _hurrah! we no longer live in a dung heap!_ and _Mrs. Hudson told him to clean the flat, and he **did**_ tussled until the unease won. "You cleaned up."

"It needed doing."

"It's needed doing since the day we moved in here." John rubbed his eyes. "You cleaned up because Mrs. Hudson told you to."

"You're not on about that again, are you? It made sense to contain my possessions so that they wouldn't be damaged by the plumber's work."

And yes, the kitchen floor was dry, at least. "It's repaired, then?"

"The kitchen is once more available for use." Sherlock set the bin by the door and turned the piece of pipe in his hand. "Make me a cup too."

John rolled his eyes and started the kettle. "You don't get to dodge around this," he said.

"For Christ's sake, will you just drop it? As I said before, I am doing nothing, _nothing_ that I didn't already want to do."

"You wanted to clean the flat?"

"Fine, if you want precision, I do nothing that I don't _choose_ to do. If that coincidentally overlaps with what other people want me to do, well, they should be happy."

John exhaled and looked at the sink. "I'm not happy."

"So the next time you ask me for a favour, you want me to say 'fuck off, John'?"

"No. I want you to act like yourself."

Footsteps; he looked up to see Sherlock glaring down at him in his best "loom over the short flatmate" mode. "Unless a case requires it, I never act any other way. I know my mind; I know when it is functioning properly. It. Is. Functioning. Properly. Now."

John folded his arms and refused to break eye contact. "Did you think that back in the days when you took cocaine too?"

Sherlock whirled away, grabbing his own head as if John's words had given him a migraine. "Why do I waste my time on your idiocy?"

"I often ask myself the same question."

Sherlock growled and threw himself down on the couch, Sulking Position 1.

There was a knock on the outside door. "I'll get it," John said, ignoring the snort from the couch.

But Mrs. Hudson had been too fast for them; the steps creaked, and Sally Donovan stood in the flat doorway, grinning broadly and toting a large bag.

Sherlock didn't even look up. "You're still not welcome in this flat. Leave."

"Sorry, C.D.F., I didn't come to see you. John, how do you feel about some light reading?"

"Another book?"

"You could say that." She took a thick stack of paper out of the bag.

"We are not interested in whatever you were doing at the British Library," Sherlock said. "And what part of 'leave' did you not understand?"

The British Library? What would she have been.... _oh_! John hurried over to see the papers. "My God, don't tell me you actually found them?"

She looked triumphant. "When that foundation dissolved, they transferred all their archives to the BL. These've been sitting there ever since."

Photocopies of handwritten pages, the top one beginning _"To Sherlock Holmes she is always **the** woman."_ "I can't believe it."

"Neither can I. Ready to read?"

"Synonyms for leave," Sherlock said, "include go and depart."

John grinned. "So, you're not interested in Dr. Watson's lost stories about your cousin."

Three seconds of stillness before Sherlock turned; five more seconds of silence as he stared at Sally.

She said, "I could tell you it's a package deal; I leave, these go with me. But I think you need to read them, so I'm not going to play three-year-old. What about you?"

Finally, Sherlock sat up. "All right. Stay if you must."

John took the stack of papers. "Christ, Sally, how much did you spend on photocopies?"

"Don't ask me; I don't want to remember. I ran an extra set, but you and C.D.F. will have to share; I'm keeping one for myself."

"Fair enough. Here, let me clear the operating table."

Sherlock jumped from the couch. "Not the thrush...."

But John had already covered the dissecting tray. "Sherlock, put this in the breadbox or someplace else we don't store food."

"How do you eat around here?" Sally asked in a low voice as Sherlock put the tray in the fridge on the bottom shelf.

"I have a toxicologist on speed dial." John sat at the table and started reading. Within a page he had to chuckle. "'Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his.' Sound like anyone you know?"

Sally smirked. "Just vaguely. Are there really seventeen steps up to the flat?"

"Yes," Sherlock said. "Didn't you bother to count?"

"Why? You knew."

"Of such energy and effort is the Met made. God save London."

"Hush," John said fondly. "Here, you start with this one. 'The Speckled Band'—sounds like a multicultural folk rock group."

Watson's writing had clearly improved in prison; John was quickly absorbed by the stories. After two or three, though, something nagged at him; when he had finished "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle", he looked up at Sally. "Have you read these already?"

"Most of them," Sally said, "So, are you noticing the same thing that I did?"

Sherlock had already set down the papers and was now folded into Thinking Position 5. "Besides Dr. Watson's penchant for drama, so reminiscent of a certain blogger? Yes."

 _It's so obvious,_ John thought, _that even I see it._ "Those posed bodies we keep seeing. Handwritten encyclopaedia pages. Typed love letters. Five orange pips. Man with pennies in his pockets. Blue gem found in a throat."

Sherlock ticked them off on his fingers. "Poisonous snake and bent fireplace poker. Cardboard box containing ears. Is there one that involves a man being hanged with a pair of suspenders?"

"Yes," Sally said, "'The Adventure of the Stockbroker's Clerk'. And it mentions the same newspaper we found with the corpse."

Sherlock rested his chin against his fingertips. "Someone is recreating these cases. Someone who's seen these manuscripts."

"Not these," Sally said firmly. "The attendant said that no one's touched that part of the archive in years; the collection hadn't been thoroughly catalogued either, so no one would know they were there."

"Then there was another set of manuscripts."

John shook his head. "You mean the murderer is recreating crimes the original Holmes solved? What'd be the point? No one's heard of them."

"They think I've heard of them," Sherlock said. "They're trying to get my attention." He grinned the I-have-a-case grin. "And now they have it. Now, if Watson sent one copy of his stories to Mycroft Holmes, who did he send another copy to?"

John exhaled, remembering last week's regression and Sherlock's rendition of Watson's voice. "His wife."

"So who were her heirs?" Sally asked. "If she didn't have any close family—there's no record that she and Watson had children, is there?"

"No," Sherlock said. "So now we have something new to investigate."

Sally frowned. "Can I point something out here?"

John suspected he could finish her thought. "How many stories are after 'The Stockbroker's Clerk'?"

"Exactly. And seven."

"Seven more bodies." Sherlock leapt up and rubbed his hands together. "Or possibly seven more murders. Excellent."

Sally glared at him and said, "And I get to tell the boss that we have no idea when or where they might happen."

"Or to whom," John added, stomach sinking.

"Yes," Sherlock said. "Isn't it _grand_?"


	17. 28 August - 5 September

The next body turned up eight days later.

"We know his name, at least," Lestrade said to Sherlock. "Frank Hunnicutt. Small-time white-collar criminal; suspect in some larger cases, but we never could pin anything on him. A few days ago he'd approached the Met saying he might have evidence for a case, but then he'd changed his mind."

Sherlock made himself nod in acknowledgment. Strangled, with similar fingermarks to those found on Elkins. The initials J.A. poorly (and freshly) tattooed into the man's arm; the bizarre note in his hand; the crime scene itself, a badly burned nineteenth-century ship: yes, this was the next body in the sequence. He wished John were in here to see and not out going over the perimeter with Sally. "No security camera footage?"

"They don't show anyone. But there's a flicker around 2:15 a.m."

"Get me copies." He ducked through the scaffolding and climbed out, leaving the scene to Anderson (why was Anderson humming a tune from a Malcolm Arnold composition?).

Lestrade followed him away from the tarpaulin and dust. "Someone's really staging the original Holmes' cases. What kind of mad bastard would do that? Present company excluded," he added.

Sherlock ignored that. "One who inherited copies of the manuscripts and assumed I had as well." He studied Lestrade, dismissing the irrelevant information about the state of Lestrade's marriage. "It could even be someone in your family."

"Not likely. If my great-grandfather had been sent copies, they'd be with the other family papers."

"What?" Sherlock grabbed Lestrade's arm. "You said there weren't any family papers. You said they'd all been thrown away or lost in a move."

"Yeah, because otherwise you'd have showed up on my mum's doorstep dressed as a repairman so you could search her home."

Why did that matter? "What do you have that relates to my cousin?"

"Christ, it's relevant to the case now, isn't it?" Lestrade shook his head. "Fine, as soon as I can find it, I'll bring it by your flat. Don't get too excited, though; God knows when I'll get out to my mum's again."

"You can go on work time; it's part of the case, and it can't take you that long to go through a few boxes."

Lestrade rolled his eyes and shook his head again. 

He retrieved John from conversation with Sally—the two had started comparing notes about inconsistencies in Watson's stories and whether you could actually figure out from internal evidence when the cases had actually happened; useless information, and if it ever became necessary, surely another session of hypnosis could reveal the exact dates. More useful would be Mary Watson's will, or better yet, John's doing a regression to find out whether Dr. Watson had sent his stories to anyone else.

He said as much to John once they were back at Baker Street. John, however, stood firm. "We already have a likely candidate. And if we haven't found anything about her yet, it's probably because she remarried and we're looking under the wrong name. And if I _was_ Watson, it's not like I can help with that, since _I_ certainly wouldn't know who her second husband was."

"But...."

John continued as he made himself a sandwich. "London marriage records. Newspapers. Genealogy websites. Sally had some suggestions that I can work on."

Sherlock crouched on one of the kitchen chairs to put himself at John's eye level. "John. Do the regression."

John looked at him, eyes narrowed. "No. I'd rather not. Besides, if I wasn't Watson, then it won't do any good."

"You have to have been...."

"Not necessarily. What if, hell, what if I was Professor Moriarty?"

Sherlock straightened, almost hitting his head on the lamp. "Ridiculous. You're not smart enough to have been him."

"Thanks a lot. And how do you know? Maybe I was born into a brain that isn't as brilliant as his was. Maybe I'm here to make up for murdering you in my last life, and I need to not remember who I was so that I don't give up and murder you again."

Sherlock stepped down from the chair. "John. In the incredibly unlikely event that you were Professor Moriarty or another of my enemies, you are the one person I know who could cope with the knowledge."

John sighed and turned back to the bread. "I'll think about it, all right? But I'd really rather not. Do you want a sandwich too?"

"Not now." He let himself enjoy the tiny triumph; it did not mean that John would give in, but the prospect seemed more likely now than it had before.

"I'll make an extra; you can experiment with it later if you don't want it, but _please_ put the red sticker on it this time. Why _do_ you care so much about whether I was Watson?"

"Because it makes sense and would be elegant." _And because if you weren't, someone else in the world was, and I find that idea unbearable._

Which was a far too sentimental thought.

Sherlock stretched on the couch to review the current shape of the puzzles—two puzzles that turned out to share pieces, making an intricate and incredible structure.

There was much to assimilate. First was the latest body, of course. (It could not be coincidence that the victim had intended to give evidence against someone else—who, though?) No other clues at the scene; the person or persons planting the bodies were as skilled as ever.

Then there was the visit he had made earlier this week, after stealing one of Mycroft's IDs, to the British Library; Mycroft's name had got him into the archive itself, where Sherlock had confirmed Sally's opinion that the boxes had been undisturbed for years before she'd requested them, and where he had discovered that his cousin Mycroft's papers actually included his cousin Sherlock's indexes. He had wasted a half-hour just browsing those, reading the newspaper clippings and his cousin's notes, before coming to his senses and photocopying the entries for Professor Moriarty and Colonel Moran. (Why had his cousin Sherlock labelled Moran "the second most dangerous man in London" but not labelled Moriarty the first? Intriguing.)

And then there was the piece of pipe he had retrieved from the plumber's work.

The evidence was clear, and the anomalies he'd seen while cleaning the flat had agreed: someone had broken in (perhaps through the front door, perhaps through a window in 221C), had cut into the supply pipe, and had sealed the hole with a small piece of gaffer tape (he had found the scrap of tape in a corner of the kitchen later), so that the leak would not go critical until some time later. But why? What did they hope to accomplish?

And finally, there was Jim, who had texted to say that he couldn't do another appointment until a week from tomorrow. Was he genuinely busy with innocuous tasks? Or was he busy plotting the placement of six more bodies? Or was he sitting back to see the effects of drugging Sherlock, and whether the temporary withdrawal would affect him? Not that Macht's data suggested it would, if it were indeed Macht's drug, but then, why _stop_ drugging him for three weeks?

Or.... _did_ he stop?

Sherlock jumped up from the couch. John looked up from his laptop, then returned to his sandwich and whatever he was browsing.

Under the sink, up close to the taps (which explained why Sherlock had not noticed them while putting the chemicals and mould cultures away), there were attached two filters that had not been on the old pipes.

He found two clean sample bottles and filled one from each tap. Back to Barts tonight, and he was almost certain that he would find Macht's drug in this water. And while he was at it.... "John, I need a blood sample."

"Okay. Fingerstick or venous draw? And do you remember where you hid the supplies?"

"Venous, and of course." Sherlock took the box from the bookshelf and pulled up a chair by John, who pushed up his sleeve and held out his arm, still looking at the laptop. As Sherlock swabbed John's arm, he said, "I cannot imagine what you're finding so fascinating."

"Amazing, the kinds of things they have on the Internet these days."

Sherlock tightened the elastic band around John's upper arm. "Don't tell me you've suddenly become squeamish at the sight of your own blood."

"Given how much of it I've seen? No, I'm just absorbed by what people bother to put into databases."

Needle in. "People do all kinds of boring things." Needle out.

"Yes. Like index old London marriage records."

Sherlock paused his bandaging of John's arm. "What?"

John turned the laptop to show a genealogical website. Bride's name: Mary Watson. Bride's father's name: Arthur Morstan. Groom's name: Sebastian Moran. Marriage date: 10 July 1895.

"Oh." Sherlock grabbed the laptop. " _Fascinating._ "

"Puts an interesting spin on things, doesn't it?" John grinned. "And now you don't need me to regress."

"It would still be useful." But no point in arguing now. There was too much data to assimilate.

* * *

On Wednesday, another body was found, this one in the basement area of a small house, a man in a black suit curled over a wooden box, again with the large finger-marks on his neck. Sherlock bounced around the crime scene with far too much energy for someone who, John was reasonably certain, hadn't slept more than six hours since Sunday morning and had had nightmares at least twice.

When Lestrade told them that again, the man had had a minor criminal record, was suspected of involvement in major crimes, and had been interviewed as a witness in a recent major burglary, Sherlock was clearly delighted. "Our artist has good taste in victims." He paid no attention to Sally's mutter of "Consulting, detective, _F_ ", but at John's eyeroll, he said, "After all, John, they weren't very nice people."

Christ. "I am sorry I ever said that."

After Sherlock insulted four police officers and then hailed a cab and left without John, Lestrade muttered to John, "He's in rare form today."

"He's got something on his mind," John replied. What, John wasn't sure, but Sherlock had gone out Saturday night looking pensive and returned looking manic. And then, a few hours later, had been the nightmare; Sherlock's only comment on it in the morning was that he hated trials and that John really should try regression himself so they'd know what he'd seen. Since then, Sherlock had alternated between utter stillness on the couch and jumping around the room, often literally. John had been grateful for two days in a row at the surgery, but no such luck today.

"Whatever it is, I hope he gets it off his mind soon. But since he couldn't stay, let me send these with you." Lestrade went to the car and returned with a paper bag. "Careful with these, and don't let Sherlock do any experiments on them."

Inside the bag were four small leather-bound books, the scent taking John back to his university days. "Were these your great-grandfather's?"

"They're his diaries. 1891 to 1894. There's more, but I figure for Sherlock's purposes, that'll cover it."

"Thanks. I'll take care of them."

He waved to Sally and nodded to Anderson, then went to seek a cab himself. Though, did he really want to go home? The diaries said "yes", but Sherlock's mood....

In the end, he found a coffee shop, set down his coffee well away from the bag, and started skimming the diaries. The obvious place to start, of course, was May 1891.

> _5 May 1891_
> 
> Saw the newspapers this morning.
> 
> No. I can't believe it.
> 
> _6 May 1891_
> 
> Received visit from Mr Mycroft Holmes. He told me where in Baker Street his brother kept the evidence; will still be able to convict the gang, I'm certain.
> 
> _11 May 1891_
> 
> I cannot believe Dr Watson guilty, even though they were at odds for so many months.

He flipped ahead to June, when Watson had been tried.

> _12 June 1891_
> 
> The evidence can't be read any other way. And Mr Holmes taught me that the evidence has to be believed.

_No matter whether you like it or not,_ John added, crushing his empty cup.

The rest of that volume, as well as the next two, held few entries about Watson; Germain Lestrade had visited Watson three or four times each year, but said little about their visits, only that Watson was in calm spirits, had been eager for news about his acquaintances at the Yard, and always asked after his wife. Once Lestrade mentioned arriving only a few days after a visit by Colonel Moran, but to John's frustration, said nothing more. Another time Lestrade had been visiting the prison at the same time as an inspection by a Dr. Guillaume, who Lestrade appeared to find both admirable and naive.

And finally, there was the 1894 volume.

> _29 March 1894_
> 
> Arrived in time. Dr Watson's in great pain, but still lucid. He gave me some letters to carry to his wife and Mr. Holmes' brother.
> 
> _30 March 1894_
> 
> Dr Watson is dead. God rest his soul.
> 
> Tried to sleep; can't.
> 
> I've seen men die, some calm, some cursing their fate. I've never seen a man die as hard as Dr Watson did.
> 
> He didn't know me.
> 
> He knew the Colonel, though. But he was delirious; he swore at him, called him a Judas, said something about a letter, said the Col had poisoned him! The Col took it well, said Dr Watson was mad with the pain. He told him not to worry about Mrs Watson, said he'd make sure she wanted for nothing. Dr W. called her...can't write it. No man should say that about his wife. Even if she hasn't visited since his sentencing. I admire the women who stand loyally by their murderer husbands, but I can't help but think they're fools. Mrs Watson is no fool.
> 
> He was quieter at the end, though. Roused enough to say that Mr Holmes had forsaken him too. And then there was only the gasping. And then nothing.
> 
> _23 April 1894_
> 
> I don't know what to think. If I write this—I think I'm safe now, but what if I'm not?
> 
> By God, I am a Scotland Yard Inspector. I won't cower.
> 
> I was robbed on the journey home from Switzerland. I don't remember much, only a masked man with a chloroformed rag. When I awoke, I still had my money, but the two letters I carried for Dr Watson were gone. And this diary had been rifled.
> 
> Whatever was in them, whatever last message Dr Watson had for Mrs Watson and Mr Mycroft Holmes, is lost.
> 
> What could it've been? I don't know. If I'd received one as well, maybe I'd have a guess. But obviously I didn't, because if I had, it would've been stolen. (Or _perhaps_ I wouldn't have been able to bear reading it after that deathbed; maybe I'd have posted it to myself at Scotland Yard. But of course, then I'd know, wouldn't I?)
> 
> I'm weary of this business. I start to think that it's time I should retire; I can't afford London, but a house out in the country, maybe even a pretty wife and a child—fortunately I'm too old to sire more babies than I can feed.
> 
> May God have mercy on poor Dr Watson. If he was a murderer, he needs it. If he wasn't, he needs it even more.

John blinked, only then realizing that his eyes were watering; he quickly closed the journal and rubbed his face. Well, it was heartbreaking. But Dr. Watson had been dead over a hundred years, so why did it feel like learning that someone from his unit had been shot? 

_Maybe I **was** him._

No, that still felt wrong.

But there was only one way to find out, wasn't there?

John finally inhaled deeply, took out his phone, and texted the number he'd sworn he'd never use. *need advice. please. important but not urgent. when can we talk?*

A few minutes later came a return text with a nearby address and the note *Use the lift furthest back from the entrance. Mycroft Holmes*

The address proved to be a tall office building; the lift in question stood open and had only one button. When John pushed it, it rose rapidly, opening a few seconds later to a rooftop terrace where Mycroft sat at a large round table, shaded by a black-and-white striped umbrella.

"This isn't your usual style," John said, looking around at the view. Clearly Mycroft was taking advantage of the miraculously sunny day. "You sure we won't be seen?"

"Completely certain," Mycroft replied, as if John hadn't been joking. "What do you need advice about?"

"Past-life regression and whether I should try it."

"Sherlock is pressuring you again, I see." Mycroft gestured to the other side of the table, where a cup of tea waited. When John sat—the tea was exactly the way he liked it, of course—Mycroft said, "There are many things I learned about my past selves that I would rather not have known."

"Given how you died, I don't blame you."

Mycroft smiled and shook his head. "It was not the deaths. It was the lives. That said, if I had my life to redo, my curiosity would still win out over my apprehensions. As I suspect your desire to help Sherlock will win out over yours."

He would ignore that, never mind that it was likely to be true. "I don't think I'll be much help, unless I really _was_ Watson."

"At the very least, if you weren't, and if you can verify that by actually entering your past self's mind and confirming your identity, Sherlock will finally know that this avenue will be of no help in his researches."

John finished his tea and set the cup down. "Then is it worth trying?"

"I'm sorry, Dr. Watson; I'm afraid I can't answer that."

That near-quotation was impossible to resist. "Open the pod bay doors, Hal."

Mycroft chuckled. "Truly, I can't. Once you know what you were in the past, it takes great effort not to let that affect who you are in the present. Which is likely why we forget, except for affinities and dreams. Death is the great reset button, the chance to clear the decks and start over."

"But you still have the world you somehow contributed to."

"Indeed. It is hardly a perfect system. God may be the great watchmaker, but I question His abilities as a process engineer. Because I know my past selves, however, I am better able to understand people who hold opinions and attitudes that I find reprehensible but that in former lives I held myself; I could not do my work as well without that knowledge." Mycroft straightened. "I trust that you will do what you have done for the past several months: look out for my brother's well-being, and do whatever contributes to that. If that means standing firm, I think you will be immovable, and if that means yielding to Sherlock's wishes, I think you will perform it bravely."

John managed a grin. "And if I do it and find out I was Professor Moriarty, at least I'll be able to tell him exactly what happened at Reichenbach."

Mycroft smiled and stood. "I'm certain you were not. Good day, Dr. Watson."

* * *

By Sunday, Sherlock was more than ready for his appointment with Jim.

"You look awful," Jim said. "I'm so sorry I haven't been able to meet with you earlier."

If Jim was acting, Sherlock had to admit that he was _very_ good. "I'm sure whatever you've worked on in the meantime has been successful." Sherlock sat down in his usual chair; the room was largely unchanged, but a new faded blotch on the carpet near Sherlock's chair told its story. "Given that a previous client was so startled that they spilled their drink, though, perhaps not as successful as you'd like?"

Jim glanced at the blotch. "Oh, that—no, just an accident. Hard to get stains out of carpets without taking the dye as well. What would you like to work on today?"

Sherlock looked at John (no, not yet convinced to regress), then said, "I want to try again to see Reichenbach."

"Are you sure?" Jim tilted his head. "You really don't look like you're in the most settled mental state."

"My brain is fine; it's only my body that's performing suboptimally."

"All right, then. You know the routine. Secant phenol metacarpal, three two one."

But he was not able to see Reichenbach; simply Baker Street, and Holmes telling Watson the story of the Musgrave Ritual. It was eminently satisfactory while Sherlock was in the trance, but once Jim snapped his fingers to release him, Sherlock found himself irritated. "Why can I not see my cousin's death? We have been doing this for three months now; why can I not see the whole point of attempting these regressions?" Before Jim could speak, Sherlock added, "And don't say that it's just too painful for me to handle. I _know_ he died; I know _how_ he died. I am not that emotionally attached to an event 119 years in the past. I should be able to see it."

"There might be something else involved." Jim leaned forward. "Have you noticed that, except for those few occasions where you did see Reichenbach, you've never seen your cousin alone? You always see Holmes and Watson together."

"That's true," John said suddenly.

"So," Jim continued, "if Watson _was_ involved in your cousin's death...."

"He was not," Sherlock said firmly.

"...or if the final parting was not amicable, maybe _that's_ why you can't see it." Jim looked at John. "Maybe we need the view from another pair of eyes."

John shook his head. "Maybe I won't be any help. Maybe I wasn't there at all."

"Oh, I can't agree with that. Crack shot. Quirky sense of humour. Unshakable moral foundation. Deep loyalty to your friend. It is very clear to me who you must have been."

"The eternal sidekick? You'd think I'd try being the hero instead." At Sherlock's snort, John added, "Fine, the protagonist."

"Now, being a sidekick isn't so bad, is it? Though I agree there _are_ perks to being the person in charge. But I am certain... We've seen several incidents through the eyes of Sherlock Holmes. Now I'd like to see them through the eyes of John Watson."

John stood. "We'll see. Are we done here today?"

"If you want to be."

"Then yes, we are. Sherlock?"

Jim got up and opened the door. "Does the sixteenth at nine a.m. work for you?"

"Perfectly," Sherlock replied.

When he and John arrived home, Sherlock immediately sat at the kitchen table. "Hypnotise me again."

"What?" John rubbed his face. "Why?"

"Because the last time we tried this, I was able to see an event I couldn't see when Jim was the hypnotist."

"And you want to see yourself die."

Why must John be so dense? "I want to see what actually happened. I cannot believe that my former self would be so weak as to be unable to face his own death."

"How do you know? Maybe you're such an annoying git now to make up for being a complete sap then."

"My cousin was never weak or sentimental."

John smirked. "Do you have his diaries to prove that, or just Watson's writings? The Victorians _worshipped_ the stiff upper lip. Maybe Holmes really collapsed into puddles at the mere mention of danger but did a good job of hiding it."

"Yes, and maybe all the atoms of this table will spontaneously move in the same direction and cause it to levitate for two seconds. John, be serious. I _need_ to know what happened."

"Well, it's your funeral." John sat down. "God, I didn't mean it like that."

"Just hypnotise me."

"Fine. Secant phenol metacarpal, three two one."

The descent into darkness, the rolling pain, the distant warm voice. "Okay. You wanted to see Reichenbach. So go. See your fight with Professor Moriarty, and...." The voice paused, swallowed, and continued, "see it through to the end."

Grappling and sliding. Professor Moriarty's face bent close to his, snarling in scorn. The scent of cold mountain air. Harsh grip on his arm, pushing him closer to the edge; with his free arm, he punched, and punched again, and again.

Moriarty releasing him, doubling over.

His freed arm swinging, contacting.

Moriarty rocking, flailing, falling.

He stared over the edge of the falls, stared at the plummeting body. Then his knees buckled, and he stumbled back and sank down against the cliff wall; fury, grim triumph, consciousness, all faded into darkness.


	18. 5 September - 16 September (morning)

Sherlock opened his eyes and grabbed the table edge.

"What happened?" John's face was pale. "You never spoke, and then you started screaming. God, Sherlock, what did you see?"

 _I saw myself kill Moriarty. So who killed **me**?_ "Jim was right. It was too much for me to handle." He blinked, and blinked again. Christ. If Professor Moriarty _didn't_ kill his cousin, then that meant.... 

John reached out as if he were going to grab Sherlock's hand, then pulled back. "Tea?"

With water that Sherlock now knew to be tainted with Macht's drug. But it could hardly do damage, not when neither of them had ever received the primer dose. "Yes."

As soon as John had started the kettle, Sherlock said, "John? What if you _did_ kill me in a former life?"

"Then you'd better be more careful about labelling the experiments, because you know what could happen."

"Be serious, John. What if it _was_ you?"

"Then that was that life, and this is this one. Christ, we've lived together for months; can you, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, not tell from _observation_ that I am your bloody _friend_?"

Before he could stop himself, he said in a low voice, "I've been wrong about that before."

John inhaled, clearly counting to ten, and then said, "Bloody hell. So you want me to prove it by letting Jim fucking Moriarty hypnotise me, so that if I _was_ Watson I can go back to Reichenbach and watch you fucking _die_?"

Finally! "Yes, of course! Why do you _think_ I've been asking you to regress?"

There was a knock on the flat door. "John? C.D.F.? Either of you home?"

"No," Sherlock called.

John rolled his eyes and went to open the door. "Hi, Sally. Current murders or historical?"

"Historical." Sally brandished a mailing tube with an American postmark. "This arrived a few days ago, but I didn't have a chance to go through my mail until today. How dangerous is the kitchen table?"

"I'd almost consider eating off it, but let's use the desk instead."

Sherlock read the return address on the tube and said, "I fail to see what a research centre at a university in Texas would have that is relevant to my cousin."

Sally looked smug. "Remember a while back when you said you thought Professor Moriarty killed your cousin, and I asked for evidence, and you told me to find a crime scene photo?" She pulled a large photographic print from the tube. "Here it is."

She could not be serious.

No, it _was_. The same photograph, blurry in the newspaper clipping over the couch, far clearer in this print. "However did you find this?"

"I did some research on the photographer and found where his work was archived. Then it was just a matter of waiting for the centre to make a copy. Thought about flying out, but that wouldn't have sped them up, and I'm not about to go to Texas in August."

Like many old photographic plates, this one was not entirely pristine; some black splotches marred the print. But enough of the ground remained visible that the evidence was clear. "There. That was smoothed over."

Sally and John leaned in to look. "Enjoy this," Sally said, "because you're never going to hear me say it again. You're right." She pointed it out for John's benefit. "See that? It doesn't really match the ground here, where it's really untouched." She straightened and looked at him; for the first time Sherlock could remember, there was grudging respect in her gaze. "You've proved it. You've solved the damn three-body problem. Watson was telling the truth."

And if he had not had that regression, that would be the end of it. "That there was a third person there, at least. We have not, actually, proven his innocence."

"God, you can't just sit back and enjoy the fact that you've shown what hundreds of Watsonians couldn't?" Sally shook her head. "Okay, you're not there yet, but you're halfway to proving that one of the most notorious murderers of the nineteenth century might have actually been innocent!"

"If he was innocent, he was also a fool."

John rolled his eyes. "And yet you insist...." He let the statement drop off.

"Not remotely the same. You're no more of a fool than most people; you may have actually learned something from your past. Dr. Watson was an idiot. If he were innocent, why did he do nothing to defend himself in his trial? He was said to be the epitome of a good man, and look where that got him; all his contemporaries were shocked that he'd concealed his true nature from them. Nobody looked at the evidence and thought, 'this is an honest man who's been framed'."

"Jesus." John shook his head. "Whatever happened to 'Dr. Watson is innocent; I've been convinced of this for thirty years'?"

"I was an idiot too, to believe without evidence." He exhaled. "Out, both of you. I need to _think_."

Sally looked at John and shrugged. "Is that Chinese place down the street open this late?"

"Yes," Sherlock said. "Get out."

"Go ahead," John said to Sally. "I'll be down in a minute; I want to show you something Lestrade lent me."

When the street door closed, John said, "What the hell has got into you tonight? Whatever did you _see_?"

"John, please. Leave."

John sighed. "Fine, but...." He went to the kitchen and poured the long-since-boiling water into Sherlock's cup, then set the cup by the couch. "At least drink that later. And if you can't tell me what's wrong, at least tell me if I can do something to help."

"I already did," Sherlock said as he lay down on the couch. "And you refused."

John sighed again and left. Sherlock stared at the ceiling, and after enough time had passed for it to reach drinking temperature, drank the tea.

It had been _pleasant_ —irrational, but pleasant—to think that he and John had lived here before: Holmes and Watson, solving crimes, sharing companionship, dashing about London. As if this thing between them was immortal, occasionally shaded for a time but always springing up again. He looked over at John's laptop and felt a strange twisting behind his sternum.

Why did John keep insisting that he hadn't been Watson? Sherlock suspected he knew, now: denial. But John was right; it had been another life, and it should not matter now even if John _had_ killed him then. Maybe if John regressed too, he'd finally believe. Sherlock couldn't fault him for doubt; he would not have believed himself, before the regressions, before finding the secret niche in Irene Adler's house, before seeing Professor Moriarty, before, before.

And it would explain why John fitted so easily into his life, why John had gone from "flatmate" to "essential" in a matter of weeks: they were not starting from nothing; they were starting from ten years of close friendship.

Or rather, ten years of close friendship cut off by one murder.

* * *

"Damn," Sally said, setting down Germain Lestrade's 1894 diary. "That's the saddest thing I ever read. What do you think Dr. Watson meant, about a letter?"

"No idea. We think Colonel Moran visited him in prison, though, so maybe he wrote to him too."

"And Moran wanted so much to take care of Dr. Watson's widow that he married her." Sally shook her head. "For her sake, I hope he was actually a good bloke."

"Based on what Sherlock found in his cousin's notes on him, I have my doubts." John pushed aside his empty plate. "Holmes claimed he was one of Moriarty's associates."

"The plot thickens. Well, at least you've got proof now that a third person was at the scene."

"Yes. That was amazing, you finding that photo."

"Took me straight back to my university days, it did." She glanced down at her half-finished rice. "The data gathering was always the easy part. Synthesising it and writing it up, well, that's why I didn't have a hope of getting to do a post-graduate degree. I'm still pants at it."

"No, you aren't."

"That first case you helped Sherlock on? I've read Chesterton's 'The Invisible Man'. Hell, I've read Watson's 'A Study in Scarlet.' And I still never guessed that the killer might be a cabbie."

"Neither did I. Neither did anyone else in the Met. Look, we still wouldn't have Watson's stories if it hadn't been for you; Sherlock wouldn't have found them. You put two and two together, you did the legwork...."

"And you found the original clue." She managed a grin. "We work well together. And no, that was not a pass. Even if you weren't joined at the hip to the C.D.F." 

John laughed. "Not taken as one. Pity we wasted all that time sparring over Sherlock, though. We could've found that out earlier."

"Well, at least if I ever make Detective Inspector, I'll have you as a go-between for him."

"Do you really hate him that much? Still?"

"Hate? No, But look, think about it like a normal person instead of like the mad flatmate who's platonically married to him. He's an utter prick and a condescending bastard. And fine, I won't use the f-word, but he _does_ love the crimes too much, and I still wouldn't be surprised to find him standing over the body someday." She shrugged. "But I trust your judgment, and you're the one who's with him around the clock. If you think he's human under there, then I'll believe you." She sat back. "I'll even admit that he's as much of a genius as he thinks he is, because no ordinary person would've found out all that about Holmes."

John looked across the table at her and considered. She was going to think it was ridiculous. She was going to think _he_ was ridiculous. Never mind. "Yeah, about the work Sherlock's been doing on his cousin? You wanted to know where he found out about Professor Moriarty, why he thinks Moriarty was at Reichenbach? He was the other Sherlock Holmes in a former life."

Sally laughed. "Pull the other one."

"I know it sounds mad, but...."

He ended up telling her the whole story, the nightmares and Jim and the regressions and the verifications—he paused at the incident with Irene Adler's house and said, "Let's just say he confirmed something he couldn't have known about in any other way and leave it at that"—identifying Professor Moriarty, but still never being able to actually see Reichenbach properly. As he spoke, he watched her expression change from sceptical to blank to reluctantly intrigued.

"And so they both want me to try it," John finished. "Because they're convinced I was Watson, and they think I'll see something new."

Sally shook her head and put down her half-finished beer. "If it were anyone but you telling me this, I'd say you were making up the whole thing. Are you sure C.D.F. isn't setting you up for a hell of a punchline?"

"Absolutely. His mind doesn't work that way."

"And come on, even if we buy reincarnation, him as the reincarnation of _Holmes_? Okay, there's a lot of similarities, but I'll tell you, when I read Watson's stories, C.D.F.'s not the first person who comes to mind. Or the fifteenth. Holmes is too nice."

"What? That's not what Watson says."

"Read them again. Holmes has social skills. He can't always be arsed to use them, but he's usually polite. And he actually gives a shit about people."

"Holmes is Victorian. Of course he's polite. Probably Sherlock would be too if he'd grown up in an era when it mattered more. And...Christ, am I trying to convince _myself_ that he was Sherlock Holmes in a past life?"

"He's Sherlock Holmes in this life, that's for certain." She shook her head again, then said, "So, what are you going to do?" 

"Would you try it?"

"Hell, no!" She paused and thought. "Well, maybe. I'd be curious, sure. But what if I found out I was, oh, Jack the Ripper? I'd rather not have that in my head."

"You'd be popular on the lecture circuit, though."

She grinned. "Heck, if he really was Sherlock Holmes, maybe he put me in prison before. I'm not giving him any more ammunition. So why haven't you tried it?"

John had to smile back. "Can you keep a secret? It scares the hell out of me. What if I really was John Watson then?"

"So? Either you killed him, which no one from the boss down would blame you for, or you didn't, and then maybe you'd know who did. Look, if I were in your shoes, I wouldn't try it; I wouldn't want to know I had any past connection to the C.D.F. But your shoes are on your feet." She put the diaries back into their bag and gave them to John. "And hey, if you _were_ Watson, you can find out what was in the mysterious letters he sent his wife and Mycroft Holmes. Though we might ask the boss what else is in his attic; I don't know about you, but I read that one entry as telling any snoops that yes, he received a letter, and it's at the Yard, and don't bother trying anything."

That made sense. "Well, we certainly know that he lived to get the wife and at least one kid."

"Six." She smirked at John's expression. "The boss said once that his grandad was the youngest of six. Poor bastard; bad enough being the youngest of four. Anyway, if we get this figured out, then maybe C.D.F. will actually pay attention to the murders going on _now_ , before anyone else gets killed."

* * *

There was another body on Monday: strangled and then shot through the heart; holding a torn-off piece of a letter; next to a bag containing two candlesticks, a ball of twine, and some other objects. Tuesday provided yet another: strangled, then struck on the head, leaving a cut on the back of the scalp; an oddly-shaped wooden club with a bone handle lay by the man, and an unhappy mongoose was just recovering from anaesthesia when the police showed up. Neither scene held any features of interest, to Sherlock's frustration, merely two more murdered criminals who, on further investigation, had witnessed other crimes or had approached the Yard offering to turn Queen's Evidence.

The body a week after Wednesday was another story.

Sarah Sawyer was standing outside the surgery when they arrived, glaring at Sherlock as if the presence of a body in the building were his fault. She said to John, "When you and Sherlock are done, can you stay and help out? Otherwise we're never going to get through all these patients."

"Of course," John said.

Sherlock's jaw tightened. Never mind that _he_ might need John's help later. He restrained himself from comment, though; Sarah _had_ sent John that fascinating case study, which kept nagging at something in Sherlock's memory attics.

He hadn't repressed his expression in time, though; John said as they went into the building, "They need my help. Cope."

"These patients could come back another day. They don't have _emergencies_ ; if they had, they'd have gone to the A&E instead."

"And that's why they need to be seen," John replied calmly, "to make sure whatever they have doesn't _become_ an emergency."

Sally was waiting for them. "He's in the examination room here. And yes, he's the next in the sequence."

They entered the room; Lestrade and Anderson's team crowded the space. Sherlock looked up at the nightgown-clad man hanging from the light fixture. 

_I'll never have to handle two-pound coins again._

"Good, you're here," Lestrade said. "This one we haven't identified yet. Though a photograph is going to everyone at the Yard who works with...."

"Dennis Kincaid." Sherlock walked around the body.

Anderson stopped humming. "Would it be too much to ask for you to at least change your shoes before you contaminate my crime scenes?"

Lestrade stared at Sherlock. "You know him?"

Sherlock ignored Anderson, in spite of the temptation to ask whether he'd stopped sleeping with the woman in Dog Support now that his wife was pregnant, and said to Lestrade, "Originally from Luton. May still have family there. Brother named Edward in Reading, but they haven't spoken in fifteen years, so probably won't be any help."

Sally looked sympathetic. "This one of your homeless friends, then?"

"I don't have friends. He was a useful associate."

She gave John a look that said "freak", but didn't use the word. As if it weren't obvious that John was the exception, the exception to everything.

Screwdriver and screws on the sink; four cigar ends on the radiator. "Lestrade, clear everyone out so I have room to work. No, John, that doesn't include you."

John looked up at the dead man. "He's that man who had that message for you a couple months back, isn't he?"

Sherlock climbed up on a chair and examined Dennis' neck; yes, there were the fingermarks. "He's gathered information for me for years. This time he may have been caught in the act." But where? Likely he would never know, at least not until he'd found the criminal through other means.

"That's awful. I'm sorry."

Oh, come on. "John, when a soldier in your unit was shot, did you waste time mourning them, or did you finish the job you were there for?"

It was only after he'd finished inspecting Dennis' hands and bare feet—both far cleaner than Sherlock had ever seen them in life, so no hope of clues there—that he noticed John hadn't responded, but was standing straight with arms folded. "John?"

John's voice was far too calm. "It was never time wasted." He moved towards the door. "You've got this under control, so I'll go and help Sarah; I'm a lot more used to working in makeshift environments than most of the staff here. I'll see you at the flat later."

For a moment after the door closed, Sherlock considered going after John. But what was there to say? Dennis' memory would be better honoured by Sherlock's finding his killer.

Except that this scene had been left as bare as the others; clean enough, at least at the macroscopic level, for a medical examination. _Whoever is behind these bodies is as good at this as I am. Perhaps even better._

_But they cannot have left me without a hint; they cannot simply be mocking me. There is a pattern here, a clue, if I can just **find** it._

He opened the door and jerked his head towards Anderson. "You can go back in; there's nothing there for you to spoil."

Sally stood by Lestrade, glaring at Sherlock. "You're losing your game, you realize. You only have two more chances."

"If you can solve this before I do, then by all means don't let me stand in your way." Sherlock strode out of the surgery.

His afternoon investigations were fruitless; he spent most of the day contacting members of his homeless network, asking for reports, and telling them to drop all further inquiries into the mysterious bodies. There was no point in wasting their work, after all; sentiment had nothing to do with it. By the time he finished, he still had no idea what Dennis might have found, but he at least had a rough idea of where the man had last been seen.

When he finally arrived home late that evening, John was in his chair, watching television. Sherlock waited for him to say something, but finding him absorbed by the idiot driving a truck up the slope of an active volcano, decided to go to bed instead.

The nightmare this time was of the prison, of Watson doubled over in agony as the poison destroyed his intestines and kidneys. Sarah Sawyer was checking his pulse; she looked up at Sherlock and said, "You deserve this."

"But he doesn't!" Sherlock shouted.

She ignored him, and Jim appeared by his side. "Don't worry about him," he said gently. "There was nothing you could've done. Nothing after the date."

"What date?"

"Didn't you get my message?" Jim smiled. "Of course you didn't."

"He thinks himself as intelligent as I am." His cousin Sherlock now stood beside Jim. "Do you see any evidence of that?"

Sherlock whirled and saw Dennis walking towards him, the noose still around his neck. "Sherlock, where are my shoes?"

He woke screaming "I don't _know_!"

Footsteps on the stairs; John threw open his door and stood, looking at him.

"It's nothing," Sherlock said. "Go back to bed."

"Fine," John replied. He took a deep breath. "You don't have friends. You just have useful associates. Fine. So tomorrow I'm going to be useful, because it doesn't matter...."

"His shoes. His clothes. Did they find any of that in the surgery?"

"The victim's? Not that I know of."

Sherlock jumped out of bed and pulled his suit from the wardrobe. "Then there's still a chance that the murderer did something stupid with it."

"Sherlock, there's thousands of rubbish bins and skips in London...."

"I'll see you at Jim's tomorrow morning." He ran out into the night, pausing only to text Mycroft. *Any CCTV glitches last night? Relevant to your case as well as mine. SH*

By dawn, he had narrowed down the area, and at last he found what he sought: Dennis' clothing, bagged up and tossed into a skip. There were only two clues: a smudge of dirt on one of the shoes, which Sherlock bagged for later analysis, and a scrap of paper in a trouser pocket with a handwritten, unsigned note, not in Dennis' handwriting: "Took you long enough. When you figure out where I live, I'll meet you by the fountain."

The paper yielded no other information—simply a scrap torn off a flyer—and he pocketed it for further study.

* * *

This time, John was deliberately early to Jim's office, in spite of the drizzling rain.

His hopes were realized; he had waited on the step for hardly a minute when Mrs. Moriarty opened the door. "James isn't here yet; would you like some coffee?"

"I had some already, but thanks." He followed her up to her sitting room. When she had seated him and started the music—something melodic and soothing, reminding him of a piece Sherlock had played before—he said, "I feel like I'm asking everyone this these days, but have _you_ ever tried past life regression?"

She smiled. "My dear, I'm the one who taught James the technique." Her smile faded. "You are planning to try."

"Yes. Do you think it's a bad idea?"

"One cannot know until after the fact. It did me no harm, but my most recent self was so like my present self, with our shared delight in travel, in adventure, in music—I regret that I cannot sing half as well as she could, but overall I'm happy to have her memories in my mind. Other people, though, I have seen harmed by the knowledge. That young lady who James pretended to date—you know Molly, I believe?" He nodded, and she continued, "She found it too dangerous, and had the sense to repress the memories while she was still in the trance, so it did her no harm in the end. But I also knew one young man who performed a past life regression and became....well, there was always the possibility that he would choose the path he did, but I wonder if the knowledge that his past self chose a similar path influenced him."

John nodded. "All right, then. If that's all I'm risking...."

"It is not. You also risk the shock of finding your past self horrifying to your present. You risk learning that you committed harmful acts in the past, and overcompensating to make up for them in the present." 

"Could be dangerous, then." He felt himself settling inside, as if that knowledge was enough to calm the part of him that understood Sherlock's grumbles of _bored_.

"It could indeed. And yet...when Peter, my husband, was dying, he asked me to try performing a past life regression on him. We learned that he had wronged me in a previous life, but he died knowing that he had more than redeemed the act in this life." She looked out the window and stood. "If you were who I think you were in the past, then I believe the knowledge will not be too much for you."

 _John Hamish Watson: doctor, soldier, best mate of Sherlock Holmes until someone got fed up and pushed him over a cliff. Fine. We won't go near any cliffs._ "Thank you," he said as he followed her to the stairs.

"I'm sure you will return the favour soon. Good luck."

He went downstairs, to where Jim was greeting Sherlock in the hall, and said, "All right. It's my turn."

The look of relief that flashed across Sherlock's face, just for a moment, seemed like complete compensation for whatever he was about to find out.

"Wonderful!" Jim said. "Let's start, then. We won't try to see anything specific; let's just find out who you were."

This time, John sat in the chair in front of the desk, staring at the candle, listening to Jim speak. "You've seen Sherlock do this many times; you know what to do. Remember that you are only an observer, not a participant. Look at the candle; relax; let your eyes grow heavy."

He glanced quickly at Sherlock, who leaned forward, probably observing every movement of his face. Possibly waiting for the right moment to plant the suggestion that John let him use more of the flat to store experiments. John lifted his left hand a couple centimetres off his leg, felt its steadiness, and set it back down. _Once more into the breach, then._ He closed his eyes and leapt mentally into the darkness.

It was not the stairwell of Sherlock's or Jim's description; it was more like a mineshaft, and his destiny—his _past_ —rested at the bottom. He let himself fall, refused to slow himself, felt no fear of what he might hit at the end.

A brief instant of sharp pain, and he was through, flying past a blur of scenes, halting in an unfamiliar room. No, not unfamiliar; merely not Baker Street, not loved like Baker Street.

"Where are you?" asked the gentle voice.

"In Dr. Watson's home near Paddington."

"That was quite fast. Excellent. Now, observe only; do not participate. What do you see?"

"Watson sitting in his consulting-room reading, and looking up as Holmes enters the room. He is horrified at Holmes' appearance, and no wonder; Holmes is exhausted and under great strain, though he puts a brave face on it."

"This is very interesting. What is the date?"

"The twenty-fourth of April, 1891."

Far away, there was a sharp inhalation. Now was not the time for him to react, to comfort or reassure; he had a mission to carry out. His awareness of himself faded; his own voice, his own relation of the scene, became a simple movement of breath and mouth, irrelevant to what was observed.

* * *

The chair scraped against the floor as Watson rose. "Holmes, whatever is the matter?"

Holmes finished bolting the shutters, then turned and rested a hand on the back of another chair. "I am sorry to trouble you at this late hour, Watson. I shall trespass on your patience and time only briefly, a quarter-hour, half-hour at most."

"You are not well. Or at the very least, you have had a great shock."

"I am quite well, thank you. Nothing has happened that I did not expect. Perhaps I have been using myself up rather too freely, but that is all."

"Holmes." Watson came around the desk and poured a glass of brandy. "Sit, drink this, and tell me what has happened."

At last, Holmes sank into the chair and accepted the glass. "You might recall, in that case you refer to in your notes as 'The Valley of Fear', that I suspected a greater mind was behind those terrible events and that this person had arranged the murder of John Douglas. I know now his identity: one Professor Moriarty, a man of mathematical genius and deep evil. I have found him; I have nearly captured him; and he, unfortunately, has nearly ended me." He sipped at the brandy. "In three days the Yard will be able to capture the entire foul gang. The trap is laid, and I need not be present when it is sprung, but to be sure of their conviction, I must survive till the trial." He set down the glass and steepled his fingers together. "Three days. I need only evade Moriarty and his confederates for that long. But if I remain in London, I fear...." He fell silent a moment, then said, "Thank you, Watson. This has been a much needed respite. May I trouble you for the use of your back garden wall rather than your front door?"

"You may trouble me to remain in that chair for at least the next hour, and to tell me the entire story, after which the guest bedroom will be made ready for you."

"That is not possible. I am too dangerous a guest."

"The hour, then, at least? And you will tell me of this Moriarty, and of the steps you have taken to capture him, and then you will tell me what aid I can give you to ensure the destruction of his gang. Mary is away on a visit, and my neighbour will be able to see to my practice, so I am entirely at your disposal. What would you have me do?"

"It will not take so long to tell the tale." Holmes took up his glass again. "I confess that a companion in this endeavour would be a great comfort. But after our last meeting, I dare not presume...."

"Holmes." Watson shook his head. "Does it require the deception of me that the Culverton Smith business did?"

"I most sincerely hope not, but in this affair I can promise you nothing. Except danger, the gravest danger."

"Then I ask again, what would you have me do? I am yours to command."

Holmes slumped back in the chair, finally displaying his exhaustion, and sighed. "I would have you live a long and prosperous life, no matter what fate befalls me in the coming days. If I am marked to die, I would perish gladly if I knew you alive, well, and happy."

"Impossible. The end of your life would be the end of my happiness. Therefore, to preserve my happiness, I must help to preserve your life. For the third and final time, Holmes, what would you have me do?"

Holmes exhaled and set down the glass, returning to his upright posture. "I leave for the Continent tomorrow; I shall stay there at least a week. Will you come with me?"

"Of course I shall." Watson clasped Holmes' shoulder. "I promised you the ends of the earth; the Continent is hardly such a journey in comparison."

Holmes' hand covered Watson's for a moment, then fell away. "I do not deserve you, Watson."

"I would do far more for the best and wisest man I have ever known." Watson stepped back. "Rest while I build up the fire, and then tell me of this fiendish professor."

* * *

"Pause there for a moment."

The scene froze on Holmes standing before the mirror to straighten his collar, Watson picking up the coal scuttle. He waited, the observer, braced for whatever might come next.

The distant voice sounded in his head again. "All this time you've been an observer; it's time to stop observing. Go into yourself. Enter your own past mind, see the room through your past self's eyes, and tell me your name."

He was no longer floating above the room, but resident inside his own body, yet still separated from his past mind, from a maelstrom of thought and emotion, by the thinnest of dams.

Sensory data seeped through first, proprioception and texture and odours. _I was taller then,_ the observer thought. The wool fabric, the stiff collar and cuffs; all felt harsh against his skin, and yet comfortingly familiar, armour donned daily against the world. The smell of coal fire, of a dozen different chemicals that he identified and ignored, of his own sweat. The dull rattle of coal being poured onto the fire. He studied his hands, the old scars and fresher scabs, and finally looked up at the mirror.

Grey eyes stared back at him, grey eyes in a narrow pale face, grey eyes between a sharp nose and a high forehead crowned with black hair.

Behind him, Watson set down the scuttle.

Within him, the dam broke.

_Wry amusement/fear and exhaustion/how many routes out of London are still open to me?/John Watson, still loyal at root, still here when I need him/stay away from the window/dust on the side table; Watson still has servant trouble/where is Moriarty now? was I seen? no, because I am still alive/Watson's practice is busy, obvious from his shoes, and yet he will drop all for my sake/is Mycroft prepared for his role tomorrow?/Watson, my dearest Watson/DANGER DANGER DANGER/DON'T SPEAK/DON'T TELL JIM WHAT YOU SEE/WAKE UP, JOHN!_

John leapt to his feet. Jim was still smiling, but looked just the slightest bit taken aback ( _didn't expect you to snap out of hypnosis unassisted_ ); Sherlock merely looked eager (no, you don't want to know, Sherlock, you really don't want to know).

"Oh no. I wasn't." He was suddenly short of breath; he gulped air before he could speak again. "I wasn't him. I couldn't have been him."

Jim came around the desk and rested a hand on John's good shoulder. "I know it's a shock, confirming it, but once you've thought about it a while...."

He shook Jim's hand off. "It's impossible. Christ. Oh, Christ."

"John?" Sherlock's eagerness had faded ( _worried, that's what worried looks like on him_ ).

"Don't ask me. For God's sake, Sherlock, don't ask me." He stumbled to the door, down the stairs, out and around the corner. There was not enough oxygen in the air. He ran anyway, down street after street, before he stopped and leaned against a wall, swallowing the rain.

_I wasn't Dr. Watson. I was Sherlock fucking Holmes._


	19. 16 September (afternoon)

Jim shook his head as John ran out of the room, but held out a hand, not quite touching Sherlock's arm, when Sherlock started to follow. "Let him go. We'll give him some breathing time and see if he comes back."

"He won't." John had been more shocked and horrified than Sherlock had ever seen him. And yet, why? What about Watson was so terrible that John couldn't stand being him? Even if Watson _had_ killed Holmes—and surely John had not seen _that_.

But what might Watson have thought, when Holmes begged for his help? What ideas, what plans might have sprouted? What if _that_ had driven John to running?

Jim blew out the candle. "A pity. Still, that's clearly confirmation."

"Yes. I had expected him to take the news of being wrong more calmly, though."

"Perhaps it's simply the shock. Or perhaps.... I wonder, are you absolutely certain that my great-uncle killed your cousin? More precisely, are you still positive that Dr. Watson was innocent?"

It was a relief to voice the suspicion. "I am still certain that your great-uncle was at the very least involved. But the second...no, I am not."

Jim nodded. "Then perhaps John's realized that he killed you before and he could do it again." He sighed. "Sometimes I wonder if that's the true danger of past life regression, why we are kept in blissful ignorance. Once you know the past, you are so often compelled to repeat it."

Ridiculous. "You are not seriously implying that John is now planning to kill me."

"Oh, not at all. You know what he's like; he would never _plan_ to. But someday, you and he will have an argument, one of those little disagreements that lovers, excuse me, that flatmates often have. And if he remembers that once before he found a permanent way to end all strife—well, perhaps he would find the option more palatable."

Sherlock was livid. "Have you paid any attention whatsoever to John in all the time we've worked together? The man has a moral centre that would hold up to bombs or wrecking balls." _If I picked the right day, Lestrade and Donovan would swear in court...._ No, that was merely John being frustrated. John had shot a man for him after knowing him less than a day; yet....

"I certainly don't want to cast suspicions on him. I'm only saying that you should be careful. Very careful. Someone might want to repeat history." Jim stepped back. "Next week? Would Tuesday work?"

"Yes." Meanwhile, he would go home, and wait for John to finish walking out his thoughts.

* * *

After several more minutes of walking, John found a café and ordered a cup of tea and some biscuits, hoping that this would soothe his mind as well as his stomach.

_So I was really...no._

_So this means Sherlock must have been Watson. Fine._

The mosiac-surfaced table had crumbs on it, falling into the low spots in the grouting. There was grit on the floor. The counter, however, was spotless and shining, as were his cup and plate.

_Which explains why he's convinced Watson didn't do it—because he'd **know**. Fine. And which explains why **I'm** convinced Watson didn't do it—because I was oh God oh God oh God it is **not bloody possible**._

His table was by a brick pillar, the mortar uneven and sloppy.

_I lived in Baker Street 120 years ago. Fine. Sherlock and I were friends in a former life. Fine. More than fine. I was the great detective Sherlock Holmes in a former life. No. Fucking. Way._

The queue at the counter was still long, and Christ, why was he noticing all this irrelevant stuff? 

_Let's try again. It's all fine. I am going to leave this understaffed café owned by an amateur tile setter, I am going to go home, and I am going to tell Sherlock that actually, he's been wrong all this time, and that, surprise! he wasn't Holmes, because I **have gone completely mad and am suffering from delusions and hallucinations**._

He inhaled.

 _On the bright side, this means I only invaded Afghanistan once. Right, I can compare notes with Sherlock once I've told him that he was Watson and he's recovered from the complete meltdown. Because clearly **he** doesn't have the same brain he did in his past life, so it's no surprise that I don't either. Fine. I was Sherlock bloody Holmes. Fine. Oh God. No, really, fine._

So. He had accepted the fact. Well, he was not denying the fact. Well, he _was_ denying it, but yes, he did know it was pointless. Fine. He stood and exited the café.

The black car was waiting outside.

Oh, God, not _now_...no, it was _fine_. He needed a ride home anyway.

He climbed in beside Anthea and sat in silence. As always, her thumbs were busy on her Blackberry, unimpeded by the bandage on her left wrist.

The leather upholstery was scuffed just slightly, a bit below the level of the door handle.

When the car pulled to a stop in an underground garage, he opened the door; as he got out, he said, "Don't worry. It's almost certainly benign."

Her thumbs stilled, and she actually looked at John. "I'm sorry?"

He pointed to the bandage. "The lump. It'd been there a few weeks without changing size, so it's most likely a dermatofibroma, benign. The biopsy was a good idea, just to make certain, but chances are that's all it is." Wait, where did all that come from? "Sorry. Side effect of being a doctor. Where's Mycroft this time?"

"Up those stairs, third floor." She was noticing John now, as if he were one of Mrs. Hudson's tarantulas crawling out from under the seat. He backed away quickly and hurried to the stairwell.

The door on the third floor opened into a brightly lit conservatory, numerous lamps making up for the dearth of sunlight through the glass roof. Mycroft was examining a reddish-purple orchid, the ubiquitous umbrella hooked on the edge of the planter.

John forced a smile. "So, in the conservatory with the lead pipe? God, I'm never playing that with Sherlock again."

"A lesson I learned at an early age." Mycroft straightened, brushing a miniscule crumb from his waistcoat. "Dr. Watson, you appear troubled."

"Oh? And here I thought running madly down the street was my normal behaviour."

"Only when you are accompanied by Sherlock. Do you care to tell me what happened?"

"Not really." John took a deep breath. "I did it. I saw my previous life."

"Do I, then, have the honour of talking to the past Dr. Watson as well as the present?"

"Actually, I...." The words _I was Holmes_ stuck on his tongue. _No, Mycroft. **I** am your cousin._ That didn't work either. "You were right," he finally said. "Of course, you usually are, aren't you?"

"Frequently, but not always." Mycroft actually looked puzzled, which John would have enjoyed far more if his own brain weren't whirling.

"When you said that Sherlock might be misled about his past identity. You were right."

Mycroft looked at him, in that immensely unsettling way that Sherlock did—more unsettling, now that John had seen what that gaze was like from the other side. "Oh, dear," Mycroft said at last, a smile breaking out. "Dear me." He started giggling, then laughing outright.

"Yeah," John said. "Go ahead. I know it's ridiculous."

"Not you," Mycroft choked out. He finally calmed himself, though an occasional chuckle still escaped. "Not at all," he said at last. "I should have seen it before. That explains much."

"Explains what? Explains why I'm a dull idiot now?"

Mycroft wiped his eyes before replying. "You are well above average, as you would realize if you considered it rationally; your scale is skewed by your association with my brother. At any rate, intellect is not inherent; it is a factor of what brain we were born into."

"So's personality," John pointed out. "So's everything."

"And yet, we find new containers for our souls that suit them. From which it is clear that your level of intelligence is not a defining factor of your soul. Your observational skills, however...."

"Are nothing next to Sherlock's. Next to either Sherlock's."

"Says a doctor and a soldier. Again, your perspective is skewed."

"No, it isn't. If I had observational skills, I'd be able to look at your waistcoat and your hand and your shoes and deduce from your clothes that you had a business breakfast and tell from the indentations in your hands that you used your fork as a knife and therefore you were having breakfast with an American who you wanted to make comfortable and therefore it wasn't a diplomat who would've known British table manners so it must have been something like an arms dealer....oh, Christ, please shut me up."

Mycroft looked thoughtfully at him, the smile now more wry. "I see you have gained something from your stint inside your past self's mind."

"I haven't...." Except, he realized as he looked around the room, he had. It was not like learning to shoot—that skill had come to him as if he had always known it. It was more like learning to insert a needle into a vein—and given his past self's habits, _that_ was ironic. So many attempts on corpses, on patients who were thankfully anesthetized, on fellow students who swore at his clumsy efforts, until one day he had finally got the trick of it. 

He had wondered what it was like to see the world as Sherlock did, tried so often to do it himself, and suddenly the ability was there, that small shift in technique.

"As it happens," Mycroft continued, "they were academics rather than arms dealers."

Good, he'd missed something that was probably obvious; he was still himself. "Have to watch out for those idea traffickers."

"Otherwise, however, you are correct." Now Mycroft looked wistful. "If time ever permits and you choose to try further regressions, I would be delighted to know more about my cousin. For now, though...Sherlock hasn't yet realized?"

"No. I didn't tell him before...." Horror struck him. "Christ, I'm twice the idiot he thinks I am; I left him alone at Jim's."

"He has already returned home safely." Mycroft touched a brown-edged leaf on another plant and tut-tutted, then said, "I would not tell him yet."

What? "You want me to lie to him?"

"He has regressed all these times without ever realizing that he was not our cousin. Presumably he always saw scenes with Holmes and Watson together...."

"Except when he was wrestling with Moriarty at Reichenbach. But he says he always saw those from inside, emotions without thought. The one time he tried to get into his past self's head...." John shuddered at the memory.

Mycroft nodded. "He is so convinced he was our cousin that his mind will not accept alternate evidence. I cannot blame him; ever since I came to believe in reincarnation, I had also thought he was our cousin reborn. That he is not, well, it does put an entirely new perspective on matters. Would you excuse me for a moment?"

"Of course."

Mycroft walked to the far end of the room, phone already at his ear. John turned away and studied the rows of plants (a few others with brown edges, but most of them lush and healthy; stain on floor at the end of one planter, matching stain down side of planter; more blooms on plants near the door than similar plants further away; Sherlock would've deduced, as Mycroft undoubtedly had, the personality of the gardener from the room, but that data remained blank to him).

A few minutes later, Anthea entered, carrying a box somewhat larger than a shirtbox. She handed it to John with a nod and left silently.

Mycroft answered John's unspoken thought. "Sherlock has yet to successfully deduce her name either. Open it. I wish to be certain it fits."

It was a gray canvas waistcoat...no, not a waistcoat, but the inserts were far too thin to be....

"Yes, body armour," Mycroft said. "Experimental, but sufficiently tested. Wear it when you next see Mr. Moriarty."

John blinked. "You think I'm going to need it."

"I have hypotheses that I hope are false. Try it on."

It did fit, and was so thin he could wear it under a shirt. "Thanks," John said, taking it off. "If you're right, I owe you one."

"We will discuss our mutual debts at a later time. Good day, Dr. Watson."

* * *

It was well into the afternoon, far later than Sherlock had expected, by the time John finally returned to the flat. Oh, bloody interfering Mycroft, of course. Sherlock set aside Sarah's case study and waited for John to apologise for running out of Jim's.

Nothing. John went upstairs and puttered around—Sherlock would look later and see what was in the box—then came back down and for once in his life did not make tea. Instead, he sat at the table across from Sherlock and started looking through the hotel records from Holmes and Watson's flight.

Fine. "I never thought you were someone who would literally run from the truth."

"Says the man who collapsed when he tried to enter his past self's mind." John shook his head. "Look, I was surprised. Sorry to disappoint. Are you eating tonight?"

"Thinking."

"Of course." The tone was attentive as ever, and yet preoccupied.

Sherlock exhaled; this was going to get him nowhere. "What was there to be surprised about? Just because you were wrong in your assumptions about yourself...."

John rolled his eyes. "Understatement of the millennium, that."

"...isn't cause for emotional shock."

"Right. And how about whatever it was you saw when I last hypnotised you?"

 _Professor Moriarty falling...._ "I didn't see anything."

John suddenly focused on him, like he did when Sherlock was explaining his deductions, but in this case Sherlock had the absurd feeling that he was the one being deduced.

"Huh," John finally said. " _That's_ how you give it away when you're lying. I never noticed before."

Damn it, John of all people was not supposed to see through him. "You're mistaken. And whatever Mycroft claims are my tells, he's wrong; I learned to suppress them years ago."

"You would've, with the ones you knew about. So, what did you see?"

Ridiculous. "What did _you_ see? You abandoned me at Jim's, after worrying all this time about his ulterior motives. What was so terrifying that it could do that?"

That clearly nettled John. "You're the brilliant detective; you tell me."

"I don't have to; I know what you saw. You saw yourself. You saw John Watson for what he really was."

"That's right; I did." John turned away, muttering something that sounded like "and I wonder what happened between then and now", which was inane.

Sherlock continued anyway. "A naïve fool, if he was innocent; a stupid coward, if he was guilty. He died—you died!—in agony, friendless—"

"You read those journals. Lestrade's great-grandfather was there."

"—maddened, abandoned by those who should have stood by him. But I'd thought that you of all people were strong enough to bear that. Clearly I was wrong."

Utter stillness, then John straightened without turning. "Watson was a good man. But you wouldn't appreciate that, would you?"

Before Sherlock could respond, his phone played the alert for a Lestrade text. *Working on when our Holmes-obsessed murderer will strike next. Come help us?*

*Busy. SH*

John's phone rang almost immediately afterward. "Hi, Sally. Yeah, he's in consulting git mode, so don't bother. Of course. I'll be there in a bit." He hung up and finally faced Sherlock. "Yes. I entered my past self's mind, and it gave me a hell of a turn. When you've managed to do the same, let me know. I'll be at the Yard for the rest of the afternoon."

"Good riddance," Sherlock replied. "I can't think with your _sentiment_ in the air."

Once John had left, Sherlock lay back on the couch and pulled his thoughts together, setting out the pieces of the two puzzles.

There was the case of his cousin, a dim misshapen polyhedron; and the bodies, an enormous mishmash of shapes and textures. And between them was this link, Watson's stories. If he turned the partial structures in his mind, there was that faint suggestion of a missing shape, a piece of data or a chain of facts that would strengthen the link, that would let the remaining pieces fall into place....

Sarah's case study.

He rolled to his feet and shuffled through the papers on the table, then under the table, until he found it again.

Patient poisoned by a needle concealed in a box, a curio whose source the man's wife had said she couldn't recall.

The regression where Holmes had pretended illness, where Watson had berated Holmes for his behaviour. The detail that had nagged at him since the regression: a box on the mantelpiece, just in the spot where the preserved bat sat today; a black and white ivory box.

Jim's trick box.

 _It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence,_ his cousin had said. Very well, he would not theorize; he would go and gather more evidence; it was still early enough in the day that he could visit the relevant archives legally.

* * *

John had thought that he'd contained his unsettlement at the day's revelations, but when he walked up to Lestrade's team, bag of Lestrade's family journals in hand, Sally took one look at him and stood. "Sir, can we borrow your office for a few minutes?"

"Yeah, of course. Christ, John, what happened to you?"

"Weird day." He nodded to Anderson ( _wrinkles on left shoulder_ ) and followed Sally into Lestrade's office ( _photo of wife fallen over, face up_ ).

Sally said. "I'd offer tea, but the swill here will make whatever your problem is worse. So, out with it. What happened?"

John swallowed and looked through the glass walls at Lestrade, who was pointedly ignoring them, and Anderson, who was failing to make his glances surreptitious. "I tried it. I did the past-life regression. I was in my past self's mind."

"And?"

"Sherlock was right. We knew each other. And I was right. I wasn't John Watson."

"Okay, tell me the rest."

He couldn't make himself say it. It was too ridiculous, still.

She folded her arms. "Come on; you can't shock me. What is it? You were the housekeeper? You were someone he arrested? You really did kill C.D.F. in a past life?"

"No. And he didn't kill me either."

Her jaw dropped. "You mean you were...you can't be serious."

John nodded.

"Oh my God." Sally's disbelieving expression became a wide grin. "Please tell me you haven't told the C.D.F. yet. Because I want to see his face when you do."

"I haven't. God, I can't. Tell him that he was, by elimination, John Hamish Watson? How is he going to react?"

"Given that his ego is the size of the Eye? He'll brush it off in five minutes and make snide comments on how stupid you are now. And you can tell him you can't believe someone who couldn't keep track of his war wound is able to keep track of the evidence to solve crimes."

John managed to smile. "Yeah, there's that."

"All Watson's writings? Ammunition for _months_. It'll be glorious." She patted his shoulder. "So, help us out for a bit. If you're Holmes' reincarnation, maybe you'll have some bright ideas about when the next corpse is going to be."

He shook his head. "I'm his reincarnation; I'm not him. But I'm happy to look."

Out in the main area, maps of London were spread about, the locations of posed bodies marked. Calendar pages showed the dates each body had been found. Spread-out papers proved to be a photocopy of Watson's stories, many pages flagged with sticky notes and many passages highlit.

John stared at the materials along with the rest of them, listened to theories, accepted a cup of what indeed was very bad tea, and then another cup as the afternoon wore on.

"So," Lestrade finally said, dropping his coffee cup onto the table, "no pattern in the locations, except as they reflect the stories. No pattern in the dates."

"Could be a secret code," Anderson said. "Maybe number of days between bodies corresponds to a letter. So this month we'd have D, E, A, H...no, that's not it."

"No evidence on who'd have access to the stories to stage them. Nothing." Lestrade turned to John. "Sorry to waste your time."

"That's all right; I needed to drop these off anyway." As he took the journals out of the bag, he said to Anderson, "So, when's your wife due?"

Anderson glared at Lestrade and Sally. "I _said_ I didn't want people spreading it around yet!"

Oh, Christ, had he just.... Christ. "They didn't tell me."

"Oh, and I suppose you're going to tell me you deduced it?"

The back of his mind, at least, filled in the steps. "Your shirt. It's wrinkled on the left shoulder from the seat belt. Usually when you and your wife come into town together, you drive. So why was she driving? Because of nausea; the driver's less likely to get carsick than the passenger. And why would she still be going to work if she feels like she'll be sick? Clearly she's not contagious, and likely she knows it'll last long enough that she'll just have to get used to it. Therefore, she's pregnant and for God's sake will all of you stop looking at me and just say the word because I know you're all thinking it?"

After several seconds of silence, Sally said, "You really _are_ him."

"No, I'm not," John replied firmly. "I'm just me. Same person I've always been."

"Fine, you really _were_ him."

"Really were who?" Lestrade asked.

Sally replied, "Sherlock Holmes in a former life."

John sighed and shook his head. "Thanks so much. Look, let's drop it, okay? And for God's sake, don't say anything to Sherlock."

"Oh, come on," Anderson said, "do you really believe in that bollocks?"

"I said, let's drop it. Just because...." _Just because I now know that you think even less of your abilities than Sherlock does and Lestrade's marriage is in trouble and Sally considers childlessness a fair price for her career but resents that you aren't having to choose between the two._ "I can't do it. I can't do what Sherlock does. My brain doesn't work as fast as his. I just see a little more than I used to, that's all." He picked up the top journal. "I'm not the man who's mentioned on every other page of these diaries. I was once. I'm not now. So can we just forget it?"

"First tell us how he did it," Sally said, leaning forward. "You said you were in his mind. What did he do, what does Sherlock do, that we don't?"

"I don't know." He remembered how it had felt in Holmes' mind, the details and the quick conclusions. "I mean, I can tell you that you actually have the basic idea, paying attention to little things and learning what each one means, like when I see your phone on the far corner of your desk I know you're avoiding someone's calls." He continued quickly at her lowered eyebrows. "But there's how he put the whole pattern together too. That stuff he said about not forming theories without all the evidence is utter crap; he formed theories all the time. He just didn't let himself get attached to any of them, even if he had ninety-nine of a hundred facts in favour, because that hundredth might point another way entirely." He shook his head. "I'm really sorry, but I can't explain it any better."

She looked dissatisfied but said, "Well, it's more than C.D.F.'s ever deigned to reveal; that's something."

Lestrade leaned forward, all four legs of his chair on the ground. "John. If you can do half what he does...."

"I can't."

"A third. A quarter."

"I said, I can't. I'm not _him_."

"Even one percent, damn it. Will you just look at the data one more time?"

John sighed, already wishing he hadn't said anything. "Fine. But don't expect much."

* * *

He had it.

Sherlock bounded up the stairs to the flat and stopped in the empty room.

Silence. Mrs. Hudson was out, and John still wasn't back from the Yard.

Well, he hardly needed an audience, and he certainly was not disappointed; he would tell John later that the former Mary Watson's will had given the needed information—granted, the final link had not been formally confirmed, but the chances that it was invalid were hardly high enough to justify the time to order a foreign birth record for verification. He had _who_ , and likely indications of _how_. Not _quite_ enough data to hand to Lestrade, but now it was only a matter of investigation. Or interrogation.

He found the evidence bag with the dirt sample from Dennis' shoe and examined it under the microscope. Yes, the general soil structure was consistent with one of the two likely locations. Excellent. He might be able to finish this before the next body....

When _was_ the next body going to be placed?

That question still bothered him. There _must_ be a pattern.

He listed the dates, then counted the days between each. No, it made no...oh, for God's sake, how had he missed that? Anderson could've figured this out.

* * *

Abruptly, the pattern on the calendar clicked.

John grabbed a pen and started listing. Eighteen days between Macht and the red-headed man, then five before the body with the typed love letters, and then....

"What do you have?" Lestrade asked, leaning over.

"The other thing about Holmes was that he didn't throw out a theory if one fact seemed to contradict it, because the fact could be in error." He looked over at Anderson. "You had it. You just gave up too quickly."

Anderson rolled his eyes. "What, it really _was_ just a simple substitution?"

John nodded and pointed to the list of numbers:

18-5-9-3-8-5-14-2-1-3-8-6-1-12-12-19-4-5-1-8

"The simplest of all. The letter's position in the alphabet." He started to fill in the letters.

r-e-i-c-h-e-n-b-a-c-h-f-a-l-l-s-

Anderson shook his head. "But then you still have 'd-e-a-h' at the end, which makes no sense.

"No," Sally said, looking up from one of the Lestrade journals. "That last part's the date. Holmes died on the fourth of May, 1891. So the next number has to be nine, which puts the next body...a week from tomorrow."

They all looked at each other.

* * *

So, Sherlock thought, the Greek Interpreter body would be placed a week from tomorrow. Though that said nothing as to when the victim would be killed; most of these recent corpses had been fresh deaths, but there was no guarantee that the pattern would continue.

He briefly considered waiting, just to see what the plan was for that scene. But no, he was already losing this game; it was foolish to further risk his chance to turn the tables.

John still hadn't returned.

Fine.

He let himself into Mrs. Hudson's flat—at least she had a proper lock now; if he hadn't cut a copy of the key, it would have taken him at least half an hour to enter unnoticed—and moved the terrarium to check the secret compartment. Yes, there it was, with a pointless note; all right, not pointless if some other police officer searched the house and found it.

He paused on the sidewalk in front of the flat and took out his phone.

No, if John was still occupied by the Yard, fine. Let him get the regression out of his system.

Sherlock texted Mycroft instead. *Am going to earn the Strad. Be ready to pack it. SH*

And then one to Jim. *How soon can we schedule another regression? SH*

The response was quick. *Working tonight; may still be busy tomorrow. Saturday?*

*Perfect. Let me know what time. SH*

He hailed a cab and gave the address. _This house should be **very** interesting._

* * *

"A week from tomorrow," Lestrade finally said. "And the last one—God, I hope the last one—the next day."

"Yeah," John replied. "Doesn't tell us any more about who or where, but...."

"But it's more than we had. Thanks. We owe you."

"Call it compensation for years of putting up with Sherlock." John stood. "I'll tell him when I get back to Baker Street, if he hasn't already figured it out himself in the meantime." He glanced at Sally, who was now examining the journal again. "Deducing Lestrade's great-grandfather's personality?"

"He was clumsy with his tea, that's for sure. Did you notice that the front and back covers on this one aren't the same thickness?"

John leaned over to look. It was the 1894 volume, and she was right. The back cover had just a slight bulge that the front didn't.

They both looked at Lestrade, who shook his head. "You aren't ready to call it a night yet? Yeah, fine, you have my permission to slice it up. Anderson, get that scalpel that you're not supposed to have in your desk."

With a sheepish expression, Anderson opened one of his desk drawers and pulled out a plastic tube containing the knife. John accepted it and, after feeling the endpapers, carefully slit along the likely edge. _My first surgery since I was wounded. At least if my hand shakes I can't kill the patient._

The cover had been hollowed out, and an envelope containing several folded sheets lay inside. John recognized the handwriting at once, despite its being more crabbed than in the stack of photocopies nearby. 

Sally clearly did as well. "That letter of Watson's. You don't think...."

John nodded as he spread it out on the desk and began to read.

_It is with an expectant heart that I take up my pen to write these last words...._


	20. 29 March 1894

It is with an expectant heart that I take up my pen to write these last words in which I shall ever record the singular gifts by which my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes was distinguished. Were I granted the days to do so, I would gladly have written accounts of many more of his curious adventures—the strange business of the second stain, the terrible fate that befell the Baskerville family, the repulsive cause of Colonel Warburton's madness, the grim history of the Valley of Fear, and countless other affairs that showed his unique mind and abilities.

Those tales, however, shall be forever lost to the silence of the grave, for I am summoned to the highest court, where I trust that my appeals shall be judged with wisdom and mercy. While the prison doctor has diagnosed a severe recurrence of enteric fever, the strange flavour of my last full meal leads me to believe I have been poisoned by the former confederates of the greatest criminal mind of our age. My time is short; I shall not hear the Sunday church bells again, and though our old friend Inspector Lestrade is en route for a final visit, it will be by God's grace alone if I live to see him. I must use my remaining hours, therefore, to tell the story that I alone know the truth of, that I have never yet told out of fear of retribution upon those I have loved most: the final days of Sherlock Holmes.

It may be remembered that after my marriage, and my subsequent start in private practice, the very intimate relations which had existed between Holmes and myself became to some extent modified....

* * *

"...Your memoirs will draw to an end, Watson, upon the day that I crown my career by the capture or extinction of the most dangerous and capable criminal in Europe."

Sherlock Holmes was the greatest practitioner of the science of deduction that has ever lived, and perhaps that ever will live. But the science of _prediction_ —that was as far beyond his capabilities as it is beyond any other man's.

* * *

...As I turned away I saw Holmes, with his back against a rock and his arms folded, gazing down at the rush of the waters. I was destined to see him but one more time in this world.

When I was near the bottom of the descent I looked back. It was impossible, from that position, to see the fall, but I could see the curving path which winds over the shoulder of the hill and leads to it. Along this a man was walking very rapidly. I noted the man, but walked on for some minutes. Then the engine of my mind, always so slow compared to Holmes' powerful machine, began to spin.

Knowing that Holmes was in constant danger, knowing that a dreadful foe pursued us, I had nonetheless left him alone and isolated, out of range of any aid. And the man who approached the falls might merely be a traveller like ourselves, but how could I be certain? I was seized by an agony of indecision—fulfill my duty as a physician and attend a patient who had need of aid in her final hours, or return to my friend and insist that I continue to share his danger?

My decision was made as I recalled the countless occasions when I have turned my practice over to a friend in order to accompany Holmes on some investigation, when my own wife has encouraged me to spend an afternoon or evening in his society rather than her own. Always, always my place has been at his side. How could I abandon him now?

But my delay and indecision cost me dearly.

As I came into sight of the falls, I saw two men struggling at the cliff's edge. One ducked out of the grip of the other, but his foot slipped on the slick path, and he himself was left unbalanced; the two swayed like dancers in a grim waltz, until with a sharp cry, one tall thin figure pushed the other over the lip of rock, and with a cry of "Watson!", Sherlock Holmes fell into the chasm.

For a brief moment I was frozen by shock and horror. Then I ran, heedless of my leg, heedless of my torn soul, until I gained the path and blocked its exit.

"Out of my way, sir!" said the man whom I recognized from Holmes' description.

I refused to move. "No, Professor Moriarty."

"You know me, then, Dr. Watson. Your friend has gone on ahead of you; if you hurry, you might catch up to him yet."

I am a man of words, but all my eloquence seemed to have fallen into the spray with my friend. "He will not begrudge my tarrying for this. You are a foul murderer, and you will be brought to justice."

Professor Moriarty laughed at me. "And you are a weak and simple man. Let me pass, withdraw the charges against me, and you will live untroubled. Attempt to thwart me, and you will find that I can make your life a foretaste of hell before I grant you the mercy of death."

I reached for my service revolver, intending to end his life then and there, but he grasped my arm with an unexpected force for one so slight of frame, seized the gun, and flung it back down the path. "I think not, sir. You cannot defeat me; you are exhausted from your walk, and your leg barely holds your weight, whereas I am nearly unscathed from my earlier exercise."

He spoke truly; my limbs were trembling, and I was unable to take in a deep breath. Yet I cried out, "Unhand me, and we shall see how exhausted I am."

His grip tightened. "An empty threat when you cannot even break free. We shall part here, then, and if you have any wisdom in you, you will consider carefully what I have said."

"Indeed we shall part here, and we shall never meet again in this world." And with my free hand I struck him in the throat, and we were grappling at the cliff's edge as he and Holmes had scant minutes before.

How, I yet wonder, did I find the strength to battle him, to defeat him? I can only credit my grief and my despair, grim powers that strengthened my legs, that rushed through my arms, through my clenched fists, hammering Professor Moriarty back and into the abyss.

I almost leapt after him, to chase him past the gates of death, to drive him like a dog drives a sheep to the fold, drive him to Sherlock Holmes, that Holmes might know himself avenged.

I would that I had.

I retain scant memory of the next hours. Only brief images remain in my mind's eye—kneeling at the cliff's edge, staring into the falls, crying Holmes' name as if to summon him back to life; finding Holmes' Alpine-stock against a rock; the setting sun and growing darkness as I made my way down the mountain and back to Meiringen; the startled expression of old Steiler. I did not even remember to look for my revolver, so stricken was I by shock and sorrow.

But worse was to come in the morning, when officers of the law had arrived and we all returned to the falls to see the site of Holmes' death.

Two lines of footmarks, not three, followed the path to the abyss. One returned: my own.

When I realized what I was accused of, I denied it with all my heart. But why should they have believed me? A passerby had seen two fighting men and a falling body. Only Holmes' and my own tracks remained along the path; the footprints of Professor Moriarty had been eradicated. My clothing and my person showed the signs of a great struggle. I cannot fault the officers of the law for their conclusion. One man perhaps could have sorted through the evidence against me and proven my innocence, but his living presence would itself have been the sole proof needed.

Two nights later, a letter was slipped under the door of my cell. The words are still burned upon my mind, when so much else of those days is lost in a fog.

> I do not give my name, for reasons that I pray will be understandable to you, but rest assured that I am a gentleman and a man of my word.
> 
> Your late friend's good name is endangered. Documents have been left in England impugning his honesty and implying that he worked with the very gang he sought to imprison. You may readily guess what mind created this plan as a last defence.
> 
> I am, if not a friend, at least a deep admirer of Mr Holmes; his was a worthy mind and a noble character. Unfortunately, it is beyond my power to stop this defamation. But with your consent, I may yet be able to shift its focus to another, to one so closely associated with Mr Holmes that a letter, a secret meeting, a signal could have been intended for him instead.
> 
> Do you understand my meaning? If not, let me make my thought explicit: you are arrested for the murder of your friend and certain to be found guilty. Your reputation is already doomed. Will you sacrifice the tattered bits that remain, to save your friend's? 
> 
> I do not act as a disinterested party; there is one thing I would ask of you in return, and that is to keep silent about one whom I once considered a friend. You have accused him, but there is no evidence connecting him to Mr Holmes' death. And you well know, I believe, that he is beyond the justice of man; leave him to the justice of God, and spare his reputation as a kindness to his brother (a most upright and honourable man) and the rest of his family.
> 
> You will of course require some hours to consider this. A messenger will knock once on your door tomorrow night; if you are willing to perform this last service for your friend, slide this note intact under your door, but if you prefer to let his name be reviled alongside yours—and, after all, perhaps if the jury believes Mr Holmes a criminal, they will treat your own crime more leniently and sentence you to a shorter term—then tear this note in half before passing it beneath the door to the messenger.
> 
> I beg you to consider me  
>  A FRIEND

Holmes, I readily admit, would have been the first to question my judgment. And I have had many months to reconsider and wonder at my decision—yielding so readily to an anonymous letter-writer who admitted to friendship with Moriarty? I can only offer the excuse that I was still reeling from Holmes' death and my arrest, or more likely, that I am indeed a fool. But at the time, it seemed the best course of action. What matter if my silence would condemn me to prison? Without Holmes, this world was a prison. I had failed to save Holmes' life, but here I was offered the chance to perform one last service for the man I revered above all others, to save his reputation at the cost of my own. The next night, in response to the knock, I slid the intact letter under the door; I then fainted for the first and only time in my life. 

The following weeks were a haze of grief and anguish. I remember little of my trial; that I was found guilty made no mark on my mind, already burdened with the sorrow of Holmes' death. And indeed, I _had_ killed a man, though one who deserved his end far more than Holmes did. The penalty of death having been abolished in Berne, I was sentenced to spend the remainder of my life in prison.

There is little that remains for me to tell. The anonymous letter writer's work was swift; had I been released from prison, I should have been arrested the moment I set foot in England again. I wrote to many whom I considered friends, but found that I had forfeited their friendship. My own wife...the pain of her final letter is the second greatest I have suffered. She shall be free soon, and if she should wed again, I wish her a more fortunate marriage than the one I have given her. I wish....

I cannot bear this.

Inspector Lestrade alone of our old friends has carried out the Christian duty to visit the prisoner and has maintained a regular correspondence between visits. He too believes me guilty, I suspect, but he has not withdrawn his friendship, and for that I am grateful. If he arrives before I depart, I will place the copies of this document in his hands, that I may feel assured they will reach England, and that he may know there are still friends of Moriarty carrying out his fiendish wishes.

I have also received great comfort from Colonel Moran, who though a chief witness against me has taken pains to visit me monthly. He has learned somehow of my illness and has sent a telegram with his sympathies; I regret that I am unlikely to see him again.

The pain increases in my abdomen, my back, my head; I am barely able to hold the pen, to think of my words. Yet I welcome the pain; it is but the prying open of a long-sealed door, and soon I shall slip through to the other side. Soon I shall be reunited with Sherlock Holmes, the best and wisest man I have ever known. And I pray that as the last word he uttered was my name, so shall the last I utter be his.

John H. Watson, M.D.  
29 March 1894


	21. 16 September (early evening)

"John? Don't leak on the manuscript."

John wiped his eyes and looked up at Sally. "I wouldn't have wanted him to do it. Fuck my reputation; I was dead. It couldn't have hurt me."

"Might have hurt Mycroft the First. Not that he'd have cared either, I bet." Sally shook her head. "You realize that Watson could have made all this up to justify himself."

"Do you _really_ believe that?"

A long pause. "No," she finally said. "I think the poor sod got fucked over and died thinking 'I'll never make _that_ mistake again'. Which would explain a hell of a lot about C.D.F."

"Explain what about Sherlock?" Lestrade asked. "Oh, for God's sake, are you saying _he's_...."

"Yeah." John stood and grabbed his jacket, ignoring Anderson's eyeroll. "And I need to tell him about this. Lestrade, could I have a copy of this letter?"

"I'll run one off now if you hang on for five minutes...."

"Thanks, but I'll pick it up later; I've got to go home. Good night."

No more lying by omission, he told himself as he hailed a cab. Mycroft might think Sherlock was better off in ignorance, but John owed him the truth, or at least a choice about hearing the truth.

* * *

It had once been a large house in a row of large houses, a size that only the wealthiest could afford in London and that would not have been unimpressive in the country. Now the lower stories were boarded up, as if it had not been converted to flats like its neighbours. But the upper stories, even in the reddish light of sunset, showed signs of care; the window frames and sills had been painted, the bricks cleaned, the roof tiles made pristine.

And when he examined it more closely, the front door was not entirely boarded over. In fact, careful lines had been cut in the boards—not evident from a distance, but up close they were obvious. As for the lock.... Sherlock pushed at the door experimentally, and felt a surge of satisfaction when it opened. _Well. I must be expected._

The entry hall was at least three stories tall, a wide staircase rising before him and splitting to access the upper stories. The light was poor; wall sconces lit circles on the crimson damask wallpaper. But at the top of the stairs on the first floor, two wide doors stood open in obvious invitation, the warm yellow glow from beyond summoning him.

Sherlock ascended the stairs and entered an enormous ballroom, brilliantly lit by the numerous chandeliers and seeming brighter from the yellow wallpaper and white coving and cornices. A raised platform at one end of the room had perhaps originally intended as a stage, given the deep blue curtains hanging on either side; now it held a pair of blue armchairs flanking a gold couch. In the centre of the room stood a large round fountain that looked like Escher had designed it for Ikea, surrounded by pots of flowering plants. Otherwise, the room was empty and unfurnished.

He took out his phone and texted. *At the fountain. Artistically intriguing, but I fear it doesn't fit the style of the house. SH*

"That's exactly why I chose it, to balance out the Georgian aesthetic with something a touch more modern."

Sherlock turned and smiled at Jim.

* * *

"Sherlock?"

The flat was empty. John sighed. Of course Sherlock had gone out. Visiting his homeless network, investigating some clue, sulking in motion—any of those were possible, though the shuffled papers on the table suggested investigations historical rather than current.

He made himself a sandwich and tea and sat at the desk to look through the documents. Probably he wouldn't see anything different, certainly not anything that Sherlock hadn't already seen, and yet....

Someone knocked on the front door.

Was Mrs. Hudson out? Yes, apparently. John looked out the window and saw a short elderly man in a dingy suit and hat.

He went downstairs and opened the door. "Can I help you with something?"

The man nodded. "Good evening, Dr. John Watson."

One of Sherlock's homeless network, then. Or...oh, _oh_ , Sherlock would have sniffed in Mycroftian fashion at John's stupidity. "Come in." As he closed the door, he said, "Good evening, Mrs. Moriarty."

* * *

"I can see why you choose not to bring your clients here; they'd assume your fees were more than they could afford." Sherlock gestured around the room. "The restoration work is very well done. Professor Moriarty's house can't have been in this good condition when you bought it."

"Oh, it was terrible. Broken up into flats, all the mouldings and original details ripped out...." Jim shook his head and smoothed his suit jacket. "And you can't imagine the trouble it is to get planning permission, even though English Heritage refuses to list the building. But that's a battle for another day. So." He grinned. "It took you long enough."

"I apologize for the delay. Even I can't solve crimes with insufficient data."

"No, I'm the one who should apologize. Why don't we move up to the stage and sit down?" As they walked across the room, Jim continued, "I am sorry that you were missing a vital clue; I was certain your family had copies of the manuscripts. And then I thought that one of your regressions would give you a hint." He sat in one chair—the chair that, in the Baker Street flat's layout, would be Sherlock's—and waved Sherlock towards the other. "Can you imagine how _frustrating_ it was when you always told me about your cousin's unwritten cases? Or when you did see the recorded ones, how you would always see the wrong parts?"

Sherlock lowered himself onto the couch. "The risk you run, with an outré and dramatic plan."

" _Dramatic_?" Jim smiled self-deprecatingly. "All right, it was, a bit. But you liked it, didn't you? A confusing puzzle with strange and curious components—that's worthy of you in the past and you in the present."

"I certainly found it an absorbing challenge." Sherlock sat back. "Aren't you going to offer me tea? With or without Macht's drug; I'm not choosy."

Jim laughed and stood. "Well, it's a special occasion; let's try it without."

* * *

"That outfit is very convincing," John said as he led Mrs. Moriarty into the flat. "Would you like some tea? Sherlock's not in right now...."

"I didn't come to see him." She reached into her jacket pockets. "I want you to keep these safe for me. And if I am not in a position to retrieve them, they are a gift."

He read the tension in her posture, the careful smile reminiscent of soldiers preparing to leave on a mission likely to kill them; he didn't need Holmes' mind to tell him something was wrong. "You don't think you'll be back for them. Is someone threatening you?"

"Not at all. Threat implies uncertainty." She handed him two leather-bound books that looked much like Lestrade's great-grandfather's diaries and a large cardboard-stiffened envelope. "The diaries were my grandfather's; largely mundane or opaque, but you may find certain dates interesting. The photograph in this envelope belonged to my grandmother, and I want you to have it." 

He opened the envelope and pulled out the picture. It was the portrait of Holmes and Watson by this very fireplace. He blinked as data slowly slid into place. "Your grandmother. Mary Morstan."

"Later Watson, later Moran. As for this...." She dropped a flash drive on top of the stack. "I believe I've set up my dead-man switches adequately, but a backup plan is always wise. If you do not hear from me by Saturday, or if my corpse is found, and if James has not been arrested by then, give that to the police."

"Hold on. You think...." Hell, he couldn't say that to Jim's mother, no matter how often he'd thought it himself.

"I know," she snapped. "Do you remember anything I've said about my family? I may never have indulged in the criminal professions myself, but I know what my son is."

Damn. "I'm sorry."

She shook her head. "Don't be. I have yet to divest myself of my inheritance, even though that fortune was created by crime. But while I can turn a blind eye to smuggling or fraud, murder is another matter, and I find self-preservation wins over maternal scruples."

"Jim's trying to kill _you_? Why?" God, if he was Holmes' reincarnation, couldn't he come up with something less stupid to say?

"Because I interfered, and he's realized it. I won't keep you longer."

John wished, not for the first time, that Sally hadn't confiscated his gun. "Stay here. You can hide as long as you need to." He looked at the detritus scattered about; the flat was gradually returning to its usual standards of squalor. "I admit it's not the most luxurious environment...."

"Clean water and flushing toilets? Better than many places I've stayed. But you're in danger while I'm here."

"Standard state of affairs, that." There was a noise at the front door. "Mrs. Hudson?" John called. "Sherlock?"

No response, only heavy footsteps on the stairs.

"Go in Sherlock's room," John whispered, pointing it out as he grabbed a kitchen chair. "Here, jam the door with this. And here's my phone; call the police. I'll handle him till they get here."

"He'll try to strangle you," she said before she closed the door.

"Then I'll try to stay out of reach."

He turned, expecting to see Jim walk in. But it was a hugely tall man, long-armed, the man John had seen with Jim outside Prague. John barely had time to move before the man's hands were around his neck, before the struggle for air became more urgent than the struggle to keep him away from Mrs. Moriarty.

* * *

"So," Sherlock said as Jim handed him a cup, "let's see how much I've solved correctly."

"By all means." Jim sat and smiled expectantly.

"It starts with Karl Macht's death. He was attempting to abscond with the drug formula he'd developed, theoretically for the British government, in actuality for you—attack of conscience, perhaps, or perhaps seeking a higher bidder. But you caught up with him, interrogated him, and then he died. Naturally or with assistance? Doesn't matter for this story."

"Did I distract you _that_ much when you were examining his feet? Oh, sorry, I forgot. He staggered around afterwards...."

Ah, _that_ explained it. "And the bruise from stubbing his toe concealed the needlemark? Of course. So you were going to simply dispose of the body, but then you thought of Dr. Watson's stories, the copies your mother inherited from her grandparents, Sebastian Moran and the former Mary Watson. Here was a man who, in appearance and origin, met much of the description of the King of Moravia—fine, Bohemia in the version Watson wrote up—and suddenly you were inspired."

"Oh, it goes even further back than that," Jim said. "When John wrote that blog post and called it 'A Study in Pink', I read it and saw the parallels, and that's when I first got the idea of recreating the lost stories. A pity we couldn't recreate _The Sign of Four_ too, but that would have made it too obvious; I wanted a message just for you. Karl was a lucky chance, though."

Sherlock shook his head. "Waste of an intelligent mind."

"He'd already wasted it. Good biochemists are easy to find; architectural geniuses like him come once a generation if you're lucky. I offered to spare him if he'd go back into design, but he refused." Jim shrugged. "What can you do? Anyway, go on."

"So you started to set up the bodies. At first you used the already-deceased; you wanted my attention, but you didn't want to go to the trouble of arranging that many murders."

"Too risky. And frankly, hiring Mr. Elkins was much less expensive than hiring a contract killer."

"But finally Elkins was caught, so you had to switch to an alternative plan. _Did_ John actually see you talking to Oscar Dzundza in Kutná Hora?"

"Oh, _very_ good. Yes, and I had to work hard to cover my tracks. It's a good thing that John is so gullible, isn't it?"

 _He does not know John at all, for all the months we've talked._ "So you hired him, the Golem, to carry out the murders you needed. First Elkins, so that he wouldn't talk. And then, I presume, others who have worked with your criminal network and threatened to expose it. Because you have a network, don't you? When that cabbie died, you were the one he named. Not just Jim Moriarty; Moriarty the criminal genius."

"Having _you_ call me that is incredibly flattering."

"It's not meant to be," Sherlock replied. "It's merely a statement of fact."

"Still, you're right again." Jim leaned forward, his voice softening. "IT is my job. Hypnosis is my vocation. Architecture is my passion. And crime? That's my profession. And nothing interferes with my profession unless I allow it to. Not even you."

"I think you'll find otherwise. Anyway, I've saved you two fees, now that you don't need bodies for 'The Greek Interpreter' or 'The Naval Treaty'."

"Only one fee, actually. Still, yes, now I can send him back to Prague, once he's finished one unrelated minor job for me. It's sad, isn't it, when someone you've always trusted turns on you—but you'd know all about that."

Looking at Jim's grin, Sherlock felt the slightest sense of unease.

* * *

_He's not trying to kill me._

The thought squeezed into John's head as he struggled both to loosen the man's grip and to push him away from Sherlock's room.

_In fact, he's trying **not** to kill me._

_If he wanted to kill me, I would be dead now._

The man might not be entirely cutting off his air, but it was close.

_He could just choke me until I passed out._

_But I'm still conscious._

_So he's not willing to risk **any** chance of killing me._

Still, the man easily evaded John's attempts to stomp on his foot or to kick the side of his knee. And slowly he was moving towards Sherlock's door, slowly turning, preparing to shove John out of the way....

Through the pounding in his ears, he heard the door open. "Dr. Watson! Duck!"

John grabbed onto the man's wrists and lifted his feet, letting his weight pull the man's arms down with him. A twang; a whistle over his head.

The man staggered back, hands tightening about John's neck. Then the grasp loosened, and John broke away as the man fell.

John gasped twice, then forced himself to inhale more slowly. He looked from the man, a bolt sticking out of his chest just where his heart should be, to Mrs. Moriarty, holding Sherlock's crossbow.

* * *

Sherlock said, "I long ago learned the secret to never having my trust betrayed. I trust no one."

"Now, do you expect me to believe that? Leaving aside your partner, I have months of work with you showing that you trust me; the hypnosis would never have worked so well otherwise."

"About that." Sherlock set his cup down on the end table. "Why have you been bothering?"

Jim took another sip of his tea before replying. "Everything I have said to you has been true. I wondered whether you might be Holmes reincarnated. Though I was half hoping to find that you were...well, it isn't relevant. I really have found our work fascinating; I hope I can persuade you to continue the regressions."

"If I'm allowed to visit you in prison? I'll be happy to discuss it then."

"Oh, I'm not going to prison; I can guarantee that." Jim smiled.

 _Now._ Sherlock pulled John's gun from his coat pocket and cocked it. "Are you certain?"

* * *

Laughing and breathing really didn't mix. John finally collected enough breath to say, "Marry me."

Mrs. Moriarty grinned. "At my age? And give you James for a stepson?"

"I don't care, if you can tolerate Sherlock as a git-in-law. Damn, your aim's good."

"My grandmother said I'd inherited my grandfather's eye, and that fortunately it was the only thing I inherited from him." She set the crossbow on the floor. "You kindly offered tea earlier, I believe."

"Of course." He started the kettle. God, he was talking to someone who had actually known Mary Morstan, in her current life no less. "Why didn't he kill me?"

"I don't know. I was his target, of course, but you were in his way. All I can assume is that James told him you were not to be harmed. In which case...."

John nodded. "Yeah, I don't think it's altruism either." He checked the fridge, opening the door only slightly, to make sure there was uncontaminated milk. "How long do we have before the police show?"

"I'm afraid I didn't have time to call them."

It must have been giddiness from lack of air that started him laughing again. "Three nines? You didn't have time to dial three nines?"

"I'm so sorry; I was trying to find Narnia in your friend's wardrobe, but I only found an armoury." She abruptly sobered and set the phone on the table. "In March, James' friend Karl Macht contacted me because he didn't want James to get the drug he was researching. I advised Karl on an escape plan, but James caught him first. Clearly, James has finally realized that I helped Karl." She shook her head. "My mother taught me that a lady never leaves a mess for others to clean up. I will call the police. But I need a moment."

Perhaps she was really in league with Jim, carrying out a convoluted plot; perhaps she was playing for time. Perhaps she was simply a mother steeling herself to do what was necessary. There was an easy way to find out. John picked up his phone and typed out a text to Sally. *have witness at 221b with information on holmes case. also corpse. need your team.* He handed the phone back to Mrs. Moriarty, text unsent. "How do you take your tea?"

"White, one sugar." The phone beeped as she hit send.

* * *

Jim looked at the gun and laughed. "Sherlock, Sherlock, Sherlock. For all that your partner is an idiot, he wouldn't make that mistake. Never aim a gun when you aren't willing to fire."

Sherlock rose, keeping the gun aimed at Jim's chest. "Oh, I am. Up, please."

Jim stood, still chuckling. "No, you aren't. Because you still haven't asked me your last question, and you won't kill me when it means you'll never know the answer."

That was...too true for comfort. "Macht's drug. You think I can't bear to wonder why you dosed me with it—and John, and yourself for that matter. And not even proper doses, but only with the secondary stage that's worthless when you've never administered the primer. The answer is simple: you couldn't bear to admit that it was a wasted effort."

"Oh, this is fascinating. Tell me more."

"How much money, how much time did you spend to create an interrogation drug that, actually, is hardly useful for interrogation? I read the reports. Too long to build up to a level where the subject will willingly talk to the interrogator; by the time it's successful, any information the subject had is likely to be out of date."

"Quite true," Jim said. "It was one of those excellent ideas in theory that didn't work so well in practice. Failure is necessary for scientific advancement, of course, but I was very disappointed with Karl's work. However, after some thought, I realized it wasn't worthless."

"Oh?"

"Well, all right, for interrogations, it's worthless. But for creating a mole or a plant? It's perfect. Secant phenol metacarpal, three two one."

Before Sherlock could resist, it was too late. He was breathing slowly, eyes closed.

* * *

John flipped through Colonel Moran's diaries as he waited for the tea to brew. Short and opaque indeed, but some entries jumped out.

> 5 May 1891. I will never know another like him.
> 
> 6 May 1891. His remains go to his family, but my work is not done.
> 
> 7 May 1891. He will be silent, at least for now.
> 
> 11 August 1892. She is like opium. I cannot stay away.
> 
> 30 March 1894. I should never have written; he knew my hand. But he was thought mad, and now he is silent. There will be no betrayal.
> 
> 19 May 1895. She has accepted. I must take care; her principles are strong, and she can no longer meet the Professor and know his true nobility.

As John handed Mrs. Moriarty her tea, she said, "My grandmother never truly took him away from you, you realize." 

It took him a minute to parse that. "You know who I was."

"I guessed. Your friend clearly wasn't him, for all that he shares his name and profession." She sipped her tea. "You and I were not formally acquainted in our previous lives, but I did meet you briefly. And of course in this life I had heard about you from my grandmother; she remembered you very well."

The downstairs door opened. "Sherlock? John?"

"Just me," John called down to Mrs. Hudson. Mrs. Moriarty looked up from her tea, suddenly alert.

"Did you forget and leave the outside door open, or has there been another break-in?" She entered the flat and looked down at the body. "Oh, dear, what have you boys been up to.... _Anne_?"

"Martha! I had no idea you'd returned to London."

"Years ago. Nothing to keep me in the States, after all. And you? The last I heard, you were in Quito."

All right, John thought, the night was now officially surreal. "You two know each other?"

"Oh, for ages," Mrs. Hudson said. "My husband worked with her brother-in-law on a couple of jobs in the eighties."

"She saved my life once," Mrs. Moriarty added.

"That was nothing; just being in the right place at the right time. Dear me, I lost touch with so many people after Bill's arrest.... John, is this one of Sherlock's corpses, or is someone coming to pick him up?"

Sherlock would probably love the chance to dissect the corpse, given the man's unusual height and build, but John was not about to try to store it in their fridge. He looked down at his phone in time to see Sally's response, *On our way.* "The police should be here for him in about ten minutes."

"James sent him," Mrs. Moriarty said, as if that were a full explanation.

And apparently, for Mrs. Hudson it was. "Oh dear, I'm so sorry. I'll run downstairs and get some biscuits. John, do you know when Sherlock will be back?"

There had not been a text from him in a very long time. "No idea." _Deal with this first,_ he told himself, _and then let's see if we can track him down._

* * *

"Now," Jim said gently, "give me the gun."

He held it out, and then it was gone. Somewhere in his head, a voice was protesting, but it was muffled by the relaxation, the utter peace.

"You see?" From the sound, Jim was clearly examining the gun, checking the contents of the magazine. "Hypnosis alone couldn't make you do that. Hypnosis plus the dose of Karl's drug you've taken in your tea over the past months, though? That is another matter." A pause. "Go on, ask; I can tell you're wondering."

"The primer drug," he said. "It couldn't have been on the spring of your box; I tested that, and it was clean."

"It was," Jim agreed. "The primer drug was in the liquid handwash; you dosed yourself when you washed the cut afterwards."

"Clever," he said with the part of his mind that could admire the plan, that measured only intellect and ingenuity.

"Wasn't it? And it was worth the wait, because now you'll do anything for me. Rob the Tower. Walk into the Met wearing Semtex. Go to Brussels and rig the ventilation systems in the European Parliament building to spew poisoned gas. Can't do them all, of course, so I'll have to decide what I want most. But in the meantime? I'll start with something small." He pressed the gun back into Sherlock's hand. "In 1891, John Watson killed Sherlock Holmes. And tonight, Sherlock Holmes will kill John Watson."

He spoke in spite of the doubts. "Watson didn't kill Holmes."

"You know that, and I know that. But the world didn't believe him, and the world won't believe you. Give me your phone."

He took the phone from his pocket and held it out; he listened as Jim tapped on it.

"Open your eyes," Jim said at last.

Visual input did nothing to disturb the trance. He looked at the phone Jim held up, read the message.

"Yes," Jim said. "John will come here as fast as he can, still your faithful dog. But when dogs can no longer work for you, they have to be put down. One shot through the head will do nicely."

He stood calmly, relaxed. Only a faint distant bubbling disturbed the still pool of Sherlock's mind, a bubbling in time with the splashing fountain in the middle of the room, a steady bubbling of _no no no no no._

* * *

"How long ago did you leave the Yard?" Sally asked John as constables and forensics staff bustled about the flat. "Not even two hours ago? Couldn't you make it till morning without a crime?"

John shrugged, having finished giving his statement to Constable Guha. "Busy night."

She shook her head. "I always knew I'd come here and find a body one day. Figured either you or C.D.F. would've been the responsible party, though, not someone's grandmother."

"I'm pretty sure she doesn't have grandchildren." God, that was a terrifying thought, Jim with offspring.

In the living room, Lestrade was still interviewing Mrs. Moriarty; in front of Sherlock's room, Anderson was humming "Poison Arrow" as he photographed the corpse. It was, perhaps, a calmer crime scene without Sherlock, but his absence was beginning to worry John.

His phone buzzed at last. John saw the text's sender with relief, then read it with puzzlement. *13 Newchurch Street. Urgent. SH* He looked up at Sally. "What's at 13 Newchurch Street?" 

"Do I look like the London A-Z?"

He grabbed his jacket. "No, you look like a police officer."

She rolled her eyes, then said, "That area's mostly blocks of flats and vacant buildings. Quiet, though; we don't get called out there often. Why do you ask?"

"Sherlock's there. No reason for me not to leave now, is there?" John texted back, *on my way. what's so important about it?*

The reply was nearly immediate. *Jim's house. SH*

Christ.

Sally was studying him when he looked up again. She said, "What're the chances that the team'll need to be at that address before morning?"

"I'm sure he's just investigating something."

"Right, I'll take that as 'at least 95%'." She glanced over at Lestrade, still talking to Mrs. Moriarty, then said in a low voice, "You might want to check Mrs. Hudson's rooms before you leave."

"One of the constables already did. They're clear; she's up here and fine...."

"John." She glanced again at Lestrade and said, "You really should make sure the tarantulas haven't been disturbed."

"What the _hell_ are you on about? Never mind. I really have to—"

Sally gave him a look reminiscent of his sister Harry questioning how someone as dense as him had managed to finish medical school. "If it's that urgent, you really, really need to check whether someone might have moved the terrarium."

The penny finally dropped. "Oh. Right. I'll be on that, then."

She nodded. "Good luck."

Mrs. Hudson hadn't locked her door, so in a minute John was gritting his teeth and moving the terrarium. _At least it wasn't snakes._

The hidden recess under the floorboard, however, was empty except for one piece of paper. 

_This gun was placed here by Detective Sergeant Sally Donovan, Metropolitan Police, without the knowledge of the property owner; any questions about its presence here should be directed to her._ And underneath, in a familiar handwriting, a postscript dated today. _Oddly noble of you, Sally. —Sherlock Holmes_

John made himself replace the floorboard and terrarium before racing out the door and hailing a cab; fortunately the waiting constable had apparently been informed that he was cleared to leave. Sherlock in Jim's house _with John's gun_ —Christ, why hadn't Sherlock called him earlier?

It was only after the cab pulled away that he remembered the box with the body armour.

There wasn't time to go back. He'd already delayed long enough.

But Mycroft had warned him to wear it when he next saw Jim, and Jim's own house seemed a likely place to run into him.

Further delay could be fatal. Look at the past Watson and Holmes—if Watson had returned just five minutes earlier, Holmes might have survived.

Sherlock was armed, though.

And how much did that mean in enemy territory? Who was to say Jim wasn't armed as well?

Enough. Decision made.

* * *

Jim looked at his own phone and smiled. "He's here. Didn't take long for him to find the door. And he should have no trouble finding us." He held up the phone to show a figure running up the steps. "An old decorator's trick; everyone is attracted to a light at the end of a dark space. Ah, John! So glad that you could join us."

"Sherlock?" Footsteps pounded across the floor; Sherlock turned to see John climbing the steps to the stage. "Are you all right?"

The warm voice made the fountain bubble more loudly. _No. No. No._

"It's time, Sherlock," Jim said gently. "Do it."

His head ached. He raised the gun and aimed between John's eyes, easing the pain.

John froze. "Sherlock, no."

"Once through the head, Sherlock. Simple and final."

_No. No._

The ache increased again.

_Something important. I am missing something important._

"Are you mad?" John's face showed fear, but his tone stayed light. "Who'd help you pay the rent if I died?"

"Oh, I would. Now, Sherlock, stop stalling."

Agonized knot in his chest, not meeting the descriptions he'd read of coronary infarction. Pulsating pain in his temples. Lassitude, mixed with anguish.

_Look at John. Something I **must** observe. What?_

"Sherlock. Please. He can't have talked you into...oh, _Christ_ , he didn't." 

"Sherlock, shoot. _Now!_ "

_Oh! The way John moves/he saw Mycroft earlier/the only possible chance—_

Over the protest of his head, he shifted his aim and fired, pulling the trigger just after John's fourth snap.

And as John fell from the stage, Sherlock whirled and fired at Jim.


	22. 16 September (late evening)

It hurt. God, it hurt. The force of the bullet, the force of the floor.

And then Jim was laughing at the click of an empty chamber. "Really, Sherlock, did you think I wouldn't plan for that?"

"You unloaded it," Sherlock growled. "I'll have to kill you with my bare hands instead."

The sound of a round being chambered. "Or that? I don't have your aim, or the late Dr. Watson's, but at this distance? It would almost be worth losing you to shoot you with the original Watson's own pistol." Jim tut-tutted. "I'm disappointed in you, Sherlock. I told you through the head, not through the heart. But I suppose you aimed for the part that actually worked."

_Ha. Can't argue with that._

John made himself breathe only shallowly as he let his eyes open, just a little. He couldn't see the stage from where he lay; he closed his eyes again and concentrated on moving his chest as little as possible.

At last, Sherlock spoke again. "When they find John's body here, no one at the Yard will believe I did it."

"What makes you think they'll find it? Oh, they will, but not until a week from Saturday. The Adventure of the Naval Treaty. This was always the plan, for you to provide the last body. Shall I follow the story and pose him as Percy Phelps, on a cot with the treaty under the mattress? Or shall I make him the villain, the treaty found clutched in his hand? A pity he wasn't a sailor rather than a soldier; still, I plan to create a work of art. And you'll have to examine the scene, and to say nothing about how he really died, because you won't risk putting yourself in prison while I walk free. I know you, Sherlock Holmes. I have followed your career for many years, and I _know_ you."

 _No, you do not,_ John thought. _You have no idea what you have unleashed._

"But," Jim continued, "I don't need your services any longer today. So I will say goodnight, and give you a few minutes of privacy with your late lover. Never say that I'm utterly without decency."

"Why would I bother to state the obvious?"

Jim chuckled; his footsteps moved away, and a door opened and closed.

There was silence in the room, except for the splashing of the fountain.

And then a cry. "John!" Sherlock's feet pounded across the stage, and John opened his eyes to see him jumping down. "John, are you alive?"

He tried to reply, coughed, and finally managed to say, "Sufficient data for deduction?"

Sherlock fell to his knees by John, touching lightly where the bullet had hit, obviously feeling the armour underneath. "Mycroft."

John only nodded. God, his left side would be bruised for weeks; he could already feel the growing ache.

"He'll never let me live this down." Sherlock sat back on his heels, but didn't remove his hand. "John, I didn't...I tried to stop, but I couldn't, and then I saw how you moved.... John, please, say something."

"I think our predecessors would've settled for 'Norbury'."

He regretted that the moment he said it, and even more at Sherlock's look of pain. "I know," Sherlock said. "I miscalculated. I didn't think that—Macht's drug; Jim really did dose me with the primer drug; he's been drugging me for months. But John, if I had....if you hadn't worn this.... The second bullet would have been for him—will be for him—no matter what, but if.... The third would have been for me. You must believe me, if I'd killed you, the third bullet would have been for me."

Moving his left arm hurt too much; the right was a little better. John briefly pressed Sherlock's hand. "Yeah. I know."

"How touching."

They both looked up at Jim's voice.

He stood on the edge of the stage, an old revolver in hand. "I was just about to go upstairs, and then I thought, 'Jim, don't gunshot wounds usually leave a bit more blood than that?'" He chuckled. "Only joking. Your control is quite impressive, Sherlock. I knew there was a reason you didn't shoot him in the head like I asked."

"Congratulations," Sherlock snarled, swirling to his feet. "You've achieved elementary deduction."

"Unlike your partner here." Jim shook his head. "What _do_ you see in him?"

John forced himself to sit up. Christ, this hurt more than his shoulder wound had, at least immediately afterwards. "Well, _someone_ has to buy the groceries."

"Now what?" Sherlock folded his arms. "Will this be a tedious loop of your hypnotising me and John releasing me until one of you falters or my brain shorts out?"

"Not at all." Jim grinned. "If I want to stop him, it's as easy as a roll of gaffer tape. Or one gunshot to each palm, but that does require extra cleanup afterwards. Besides, I rather think I like this better." He finally addressed John. "Because now you won't know. When Sherlock comes home from an outing, is he himself, or is he under hypnosis?"

John snapped his fingers. "Easy enough to check."

"Until the session where I unseat the four snaps and replace them with a cue of my own. Then what will you do? Every time Sherlock is gone for an hour or two, every time he doesn't tell you where he's going or where he's been, you will wonder. And in time, your doubt will become unbearable. And one day, you will learn you had reason to doubt."

It was a frighteningly plausible scenario. But. "No," John replied calmly. "Where Sherlock is concerned, I have no doubts."

"John Watson." Jim shook his head. "Isn't it sweet, Sherlock? John Hamish Watson, still loyal, still at your feet. Still weak. Still stupid. Still gullible. Still the same John Watson he was before, as little as he wants to admit it."

Rage suddenly surged through John, but before he could respond, Sherlock spoke sharply. "John is not weak. Nor is he stupid, not when compared to the common mass of humanity." He paused. "On gullibility, you may have a point."

"Yeah, thanks so much," John murmured. Standing had to be possible....ow. Yes, barely. He faced Jim, noting that the gun wasn't aimed at either of them, and said, "Dr. Watson was a good man. Loyal, determined, the kind of man who would—and did—lay everything down for the good of a friend. Admit it? I would've been bloody _proud_ to have been him." He shrugged—no, that wasn't happening. He held up his right hand instead. "But I wasn't."

Sherlock, John was certain, realized first what John meant, though he showed no sign other than his eyes widening. But Jim was the first to reply. "You were _Holmes_?" He snickered. " _You_ were Holmes? And you were reborn into _that_ mind?"

John grinned. "It serves me well enough."

"Sweet Jesus, I should shoot you myself out of pity. From one of the greatest intellects of the nineteenth century, to _this_." Cackling laughter, finally contained. "Well. So you weren't Watson, and Sherlock wasn't Holmes."

John's reply was stolen by a new voice. "And you certainly weren't Professor Moriarty."

* * *

Sherlock dared not look away from Jim, did not need yet more distraction ( _remember every regression/remember the dreams/now it's obvious/why didn't I ever think of it?/never theorize before the facts/no, I couldn't have been **ordinary**_ ). "Mycroft, what are you doing here?"

"Meddling, of course. Though I would call it, rather, mending." Mycroft strode forward, umbrella tapping the floor in time with his steps. "I have wanted to meet you in person for some time, Jim Moriarty. Formerly Colonel Moran, I believe?"

"Correct," Jim said, grinning. "How did you know? And how did you evade my security system?"

"The latter is a trade secret. The former—process of elimination. Sebastian Moran. You assisted the Professor in his work; you were one of three witnesses to his death, the other two being Heinrich Stehli and Dr. Watson; you ultimately killed both of them. You took up the remnants of Moriarty's criminal organization and made enough money to retire from crime. Thirteen years later, your wife discovered your true background and your role in her first husband's imprisonment and death; while she did not precisely _cause_ you to prick your finger on the poisoned spring of a trick box, she certainly arranged your death." He stopped, halfway between the stage and the fountain. "Have I accurately summarized your past life?"

Jim's smirk was nonetheless a touch awed. "Amazing."

Sherlock did not repress his snort. "God," John whispered, "please tell me _I_ don't say it like that."

Jim ignored both of them. "Correct in every detail. You are a genius."

Mycroft shrugged. "Simple deductions from the materials Sherlock collected regarding our cousin's death, helped along by the interesting document of the past Dr. Watson's that the present Dr. Watson discovered earlier this evening."

 _What?_ Sherlock glanced at John. "What document?"

"Tell you later," John replied. 

Something complicated then, or embarrassing, or both. Something that Sherlock himself had written in his ( _ordinary!_ ) past life. 

"And of course," Mycroft continued, "an interview a half hour ago with someone who had known Mrs. Moran well and whom Mrs. Moran had advised about men and marriage, using examples from her own experience."

"What?" Jim stiffened ( _shocked, infuriated_ ). "You can't have...."

Now John was chuckling. "I'm sorry, Jim, I forgot to tell you. I had a lovely visit from your mother earlier. We were interrupted by a giant who tried to choke me, but she settled him. Though I thought I left her talking to the police, not Mycroft's secret transportation office."

Mycroft made a self-deprecating gesture. "We had some common interests with the police in this case." He smiled regretfully at Jim.

Suddenly, Jim laughed. "You think you have me, don't you?"

"No, Mr. Moriarty, not yet." Mycroft leaned on his umbrella. "But I will."

Whatever was Mycroft planning? Sherlock ran the data through his mind ( _sluggish, seizing up, come **on** , it didn't **matter** that he'd nearly killed John, that Jim was armed and none of the rest of them were, that Jim actually had the key to his brain, that Sherlock had been ordinary and **stupid** once and could become so again with one gunshot_ ). Mycroft's earlier words.... "You knew Jim wasn't the Professor in a former life," Sherlock said, already realizing the answer. _I have lived my entire life with him, and I never suspected._

"Yes," Jim said, "how exactly did you...oh my God." He jumped down from the stage and walked up to Mycroft. "Oh my God, I can't believe it."

John looked puzzled for a moment; then his face smoothed into a falsely neutral expression. "You knew because you were Moriarty yourself."

Mycroft nodded. "I do apologize for murdering you in the past."

"Water under the bridge," John replied. "Or over the falls, as the case may be."

"Indeed." Mycroft gestured towards the fountain and spoke to Jim. "An excellent restoration of the house, by the way. I was never enamoured of the dolphins; I prefer your rendition."

"It's you," Jim said, eyes suddenly damp. "It's really you."

"Yes. The one person who can truly appreciate the magnitude of your accomplishments. In an earlier life, I held sway over the better part of the criminal activity in Britain and the Continent, with a reach into the rest of the Empire. Regression to my past self was an education, and a useful one; many of the lessons I learned as the Professor apply just as well to my minor position in the British Government." 

"Minor position?" Sherlock shook his head. "You _are_ the British government." _What_ was Mycroft planning?

"My brother exaggerates. But he is correct that if I willed it, I _could_ be. And with a few more small steps, I would have Europe as well. Meanwhile, you've built on your family connections and expanded your reach to create the ultimate criminal empire—extensive, powerful, well-funded, and well-concealed. And now, you have a new weapon; you have taken a failed pharmaceutical research project, found its potential, and successfully tested it on a challenging subject."

Jim nodded, eyes shining. "Given how well it works on Sherlock, imagine what I could make the average person do. Embezzlement, industrial espionage, assassination—the possibilities are endless. All I need are a few months and a sufficient supply of the drug, and I'll have a hundred specialized employees who'll work for nothing."

"And imagine what could be done with a government official, with a strategic military officer, with a diplomat. If we two worked together, we would be unstoppable." 

Sherlock was not going to be sick. That was a ridiculous physiological reaction to a horrifying prospect.

"I," Jim said, "would be delighted."

Mycroft smiled in a way all too familiar to Sherlock. "I'm certain you would be." He paused; the mockery in his smile increased. "Well, I should say that your empire was _formerly_ well-funded. I'm afraid that your bank accounts may not be accessible for the foreseeable. That includes the Swiss ones. And the ones in the Cayman Islands, for that matter. Oh, and Mrs. Moriarty also knew about the safety deposit boxes in Reykjavik, Dallas, and Perth."

Jim's whole demeanour changed abruptly. "What?" He raised the gun a few centimetres, then let it fall to his side again; the smile returned to his face. "But that doesn't matter. I've heard about you; you could intercept the money, if even half the rumours about you are true."

"Sixty-five percent," Mycroft replied. "And yes, I could. Even if I couldn't, you are skilled enough to rebuild from nothing—oh, the police also know about the securities in Johannesburg—and within two or three years, you would be back where you are now."

"Flatterer." But Jim looked pleased again.

Suddenly Mycroft's plan was obvious. "Mycroft," Sherlock said, "please. Don't."

Mycroft shook his head. "You always were too sentimental, Sherlock."

John looked compassionately at Sherlock—misinterpreting, as he so often did. Sherlock glared as Mycroft spoke again. "So, John? You'll understand why I do this; explain it to Sherlock later." He abruptly twisted Jim's gun arm. "Now, run!"

Sherlock grabbed John's arm and ran for the door.

The gun fired.

He looked back to see Mycroft's knees buckle, Mycroft clutching his right thigh as he fell back against the fountain.

Jim bent over him, face twisted in fury and a hint of horror; dropping the gun, he kicked aside Mycroft's umbrella and roughly patted down Mycroft's jacket. "I have looked for you for nearly twenty years. Everyone I've hypnotised, I've hoped would be you. And now that I've found you at last, you _turn on me_."

Sherlock's mind reeled, thrown back to 1983, to his first realization that Mycroft was fallible; his body, unhampered by memory, raced back across the room and punched Jim in the face. Before Jim could regain his balance, Sherlock kicked the gun across the room, then tackled him. A few seconds of struggle, and he had Jim pinned to the floor, too much contact but he only needed to—

"I'm happy to see you too," Jim whispered. "Secant phenol metacarpal, three two one."

 _Bloody hell._ His eyes closed; his arms slackened.

Jim rolled over and pushed him off, then bent close enough to breathe against his face. "Now, none of that," he continued in a low voice. "Act normally, and don't tell anyone you're under hypnosis."

He opened his eyes and sat up. His mind was not quite the still pool of before; the pulsing of disbelief and terror was louder now. _No no no. Not again. No no no._

Nearby, John was sitting on Mycroft's groin and pressing his hands against the wound ( _thinks an artery was hit; using the pressure point to slow the bleeding; still a military-trained doctor_ ).

"Well," Jim said more loudly as he stood and moved away, "isn't that sweet? Couldn't settle for just one Holmes brother, could you?"

John ignored Jim. "Sherlock, do you still have your phone? Good. Call for an ambulance."

The phone showed no signal. He looked at Jim. "You're blocking the mobile signals."

"Except mine. And no, you can't borrow it." Jim walked over to the old gun and picked it up. "Once I'm well away from here, I'll turn off the jammer. Don't worry, Sherlock; I'll be in touch with you soon. We have a lot of work to do."

As Jim closed the door to the front stairs behind him, John said, "Sherlock, get my gun off the stage, and then give me a hand here."

He ran to the stage and retrieved John's gun. _It's unloaded. Jim took the bullets; he can't make me fire it again._

From beyond the door came the sound of scuffling. 

Back to John, still pressing on the wound; to Mycroft, pale and unaware.

"Get me his necktie," John said.

He loosened the tie; Mycroft did not stir. Continued scuffling outside.

John glanced at the door and shook his head. "God, I hope that's backup and not Jim's friends come to call. Wrap it around here—it's a rubbish bandage, but it'll do until the ambulance shows."

He needed two hands; with a sudden sense of relief, Sherlock tucked the gun into John's belt before wrapping the tie around Mycroft's leg. "John," he said. If he could not tell everything, he could get this much across. "If I'm ever acting oddly, if I'm endangering you or someone else, don't hesitate to shoot me."

John managed a tiny smile. "Yeah, and I'd know you were acting oddly how, exactly?"

The door flew open, and Jim stumbled back into the room, his hands cuffed behind him. Behind him was Sally Donovan. "...bribery, assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, assisting in the commission of murder, and possession of an illegal firearm. You're being arrested because we've received evidence that you have committed these crimes; you are not free to leave."

"The gun is legal," Jim said, rolling his eyes. "It's an antique and a family heirloom."

"It would be legal if it weren't loaded and if it hadn't obviously just been fired. Christ, and here's the victim. John, C.D.F., are you all right?"

He couldn't make himself speak; it was John who replied, "We're fine, but Mycroft needs an ambulance. Where's the rest of the team?"

Sally didn't answer, taking out her radio and frowning at it ( _blockage extends to police radio frequencies as well_ ). 

Jim looked at Sherlock and mouthed "say something".

Well. "You came here _alone_? What kind of idiot _are_ you?"

John looked up. "Er, Sherlock? Pot. Kettle."

"Shut it, C.D.F.," Sally said, throwing him a pair of latex gloves. "Put these on and hold the evidence for me. She handed him the gun before she patted Jim down, ignoring Jim's murmur of "aren't _we_ friendly".

Watson's gun felt familiar in a way that John's didn't, in spite of his having fired the latter many times. He could not refuse it, could not unsee Jim's sudden smile.

Sally pulled something out of Jim's jacket pocket. "And you're carrying ammunition that doesn't go with that gun. Poor planning. Here, C.D.F." She handed him several cartridges, the ones Jim had removed from John's gun. "I'll step outside, then, and see if I can get a signal. You two think you can handle him until I get back?"

"We're fine," John said. "Hurry."

Jim grinned. "I don't think so. Go stand at the fountain, by John and Mr. Holmes."

"Yeah, right." Sally started for the door.

Jim sighed. "Well, I tried to be nice. Sherlock? Shoot her."

He aimed, and saw her expression change, and knew that she hadn't actually believed her own words, hadn't truly believed that he would someday be the one responsible for the body, until now. ( _She is John's friend/Jim said shoot/he didn't say kill/this gun throws slightly left/edge of right arm should be **there**_!) 

Sherlock fired.

* * *

 _Fucking bloody hell, Jim's hypnotised him again._ John continued to press on Mycroft's leg, willing the blood to stop spreading just long enough for him to get up and tackle Sherlock.

Jim shook his head as Sally clutched her upper arm. "Sherlock, Sherlock, Sherlock. You're like a computer, aren't you? If I'm not precise, I don't get the right results. Still....Here's your second chance, _Sergeant_. Fountain. Now. Or else I specify a kill shot." As Sally slowly walked over to John and Mycroft, Jim added, "And Sherlock? If either of them attempts to snap their fingers, kill the other one immediately."

Damn. Not that he was going to be able to snap with blood-slicked hands, or Sally while she staunched the bleeding. "How bad is it?" he asked her.

"Stings like hell. I can still move my arm, though."

Had Sherlock only winged her on purpose? He would hope so. "Sounds relatively superficial, then. Pressure, arm over your head."

She was already lifting her arm. "Yes, thank you, we do actually have to learn basic first aid." She stared down at him. "John? You need a safe place to stay when we get out of here?"

"You two are so, so sweet," Jim said. "Two little lovebirds. Sherlock, don't you ever get jealous of her?"

Sherlock didn't answer, keeping the gun trained between the two of them.

"Nothing to be jealous of," Sally snarled. "They're the ones with the twisted codependent relationship; John and I are just quasi-fraternal."

Had Mycroft twitched at that, or was it his imagination? "I don't know," John murmured. "I like you a lot better than I like my sister." When Sally involuntarily smiled, he added, "I'll be fine. Trust me, okay? When we're done here and we get to the pub, I'll explain everything."

She was clearly unconvinced, but said, "You're buying."

Jim was now grinning madly. "But Sergeant, how do you know you can trust him? I made Sherlock shoot you. Maybe I've messed with John's mind too. How do you know he's safe?"

Oh, God. John sighed. "You don't."

"That's right," Jim said. "Maybe I've left him alone, but maybe I've drugged him, and he'll be friendly until he sees his chance, and then he'll stab you in the back. Possibly literally. And you don't know."

After several seconds of silence, she said to John, "I know I can break your neck if you try."

 _Yes. She believes me, not Jim._

"Now, that I would like to see." Jim shook his head. "But sadly, not tonight. Staying here any longer is out of the question, but my boltholes are _quite_ comfortable, and my mother does not know their locations." He glanced back over his shoulder. "And Sherlock, you're coming with me; we'll test your lock-picking skills on these handcuffs. A change of plans, but you know that we have to be flexible in this business."

Sherlock continued to aim the gun towards John and Sally, but started to walk slowly backwards.

_This man sacrificed everything for me once. I am damn well not going to let him walk out that door._

_Jim has been drugging him for months._

_Sherlock has been obeying direct commands for months. At least ones that come from certain people. Including me._

And suddenly the solution fell into place like a relocated joint.

"Sally," John said quietly, "I know your hands are full right now, but can you take over here for just a minute? Your foot will do—yeah, shoe off, press there, above the bandage. Exactly like that. Thanks."

He stood—ouch, that still hurt—and walked towards Sherlock, hands spread open, obviously not about to snap fingers. "Sherlock. Wait a minute."

Sherlock stopped his retreat, though the gun remained up.

 _Quickly, before Jim interrupts._ "Sherlock. That phrase? Secant phenol metacarpal, three two one? That's not an automatic trigger anymore. It only works when you want it to, when you want to be hypnotised and want that person to hypnotise you. Anyone else, any other time, and it's just a silly random phrase; it won't do anything."

"Oh, come on," Jim said. "You can't break his conditioning that easily."

Utter certainty. "As a matter of fact, I can." 

"Really. And whatever makes you think that?"

John grinned. "Because you may have been his hypnotherapist for an entire summer, but I've been his best friend since 1881."

He started to move between Sherlock and Sally, ready to block one more bullet, but before he could bring his fingers together, four snaps came from behind him.

Sherlock immediately spun to aim at Jim again; John looked back over his shoulder to see Mycroft's hand lifted, Mycroft's eyes open.

* * *

"You can't," Jim said. "It's not nearly that simple. Secant phenol metacarpal, three two one."

Sherlock braced mentally, but there was no calm, no pool drowning his will. He blinked, and as Jim repeated the phrase, he smiled. _John did it._

Jim glared at John. "Oh, this won't do at all. You've made him _worthless_ to me!"

"You never did appreciate my mind," Sherlock said. "Now, do I help Detective Sergeant Donovan complete your arrest, or do I simply shoot you right now?"

"Just so you know," Sally said steadily, "if you shoot him, I'm obligated to arrest you for it."

Mycroft whispered something to Sally that Sherlock couldn't catch.

"The noble police officer." Jim approached Sherlock, but stopped well outside arm's reach. "But I'm feeling a little left out—other than you, Sherlock, I'm the only person in this room who hasn't been shot this evening."

Irrational, but Sherlock was certain he heard Sally's eyebrows rise. "John?" she asked.

"Pub," John replied.

Sherlock did not back away from Jim, but a warning sounded in his mind. "Sadly, she raises a valid point. And it would be unfair for me to shoot you when you're helpless to defend yourself. Not that either of us _cares_ about fairness."

"Helpless." Jim giggled and shook his head. "You think I'm helpless." He walked toward the fountain, the side opposite where Sally still bent over Mycroft ( _don't be fooled by his alertness; Mycroft is still in danger of exsanguination_ ). "You think that I've run out of backup plans. Here, in my favourite room of my own house." He contorted himself briefly, bending backwards at an uncomfortable-looking angle, then straightened and laughed. "But wait, what have I got in my pocket?"

He turned so that Sherlock could see his hand; in one hand was a small vial. "This chemical reacts with water to produce a poisonous gas. If I drop this in the fountain, you won't have time to reach the exits before you die."

Was he bluffing? What if he wasn't?

"Neither will you," John pointed out, already moving towards Mycroft and Sally.

"Do you think I _care_?" Jim's voice went shrill at the end of that question. "I'll have the satisfaction of taking you all with me. And I'll come _back_. Hardly more of a setback than what you've already dealt me." He grinned wildly. "So, Sherlock, you won't follow my orders any more, but I think you'll follow my strong suggestions. Throw aside the gun. Go take over your brother's first aid so that the Sergeant can bring me her handcuff keys. That'll do for a start."

Sherlock glanced over at John ( _hands utterly steady; ready to carry Mycroft over his shoulder if necessary_ ), at Sally ( _terrified, and yet mentally rehearsing how to knock Jim away from the fountain_ ), at Mycroft ( _gathering the last of his strength, but for what?_ ).

Mycroft's gaze shifted momentarily away from Sherlock, then back. _Please_ , he mouthed.

Oh. _That_ was Mycroft's backup plan.

Sherlock carefully set the gun down, sliding it towards the main doors. He sidestepped slowly towards John and Sally, eyes still fixed on Jim, memory showing the floor behind him.

There was no need for emotion. Especially about what had not yet happened, what that _fat annoying bastard_ had not yet done.

Step, step, about ten centimetres back, _there_. He purposely tripped over Mycroft's umbrella, fell down on his side, grabbed the umbrella and flung it towards Mycroft.

Mycroft snatched the handle, flipped open a catch, and pressed his thumb against the panel underneath, the panel that registered biometric data and could trigger a signal. His voice gave away no hint of his obvious physical distress. "There is one other fact you haven't accounted for."

"A secret radio signal in your brolly?" Jim chuckled. "I _assumed_ that."

"You forgot that I know this house too. 

All Jim's focus was on Mycroft again. "What do you mean by that?"

Sherlock said, "He means that he also holds a hostage." 

"Now, whoever could he have found that would sway me?" But there was uncertainty in his tone, just the faintest hint.

Mycroft managed to sit up. "Dr. Watson, Detective Sergeant Donovan, would you please help me up?"

John started to protest, looked at Mycroft ( _sees that argument is futile_ ), inhaled, and nodded to Sally. Once Mycroft was vertical, standing on his uninjured leg and leaning on his umbrella for balance, they both backed slowly towards Sherlock.

Mycroft spoke calmly. "I mean, my dear James, that in addition to being able to overcome your security cameras—hardly a challenge; you used the same techniques to thwart the CCTVs—I knew exactly where to place explosive charges to bring this building down." He smiled, even as the dark splotch on his trouser widened. "And this is a deadman switch."

Jim froze in horror; the vial fell to the floor and rolled away. "No," he whispered. "Not my house."

Mycroft's smile broadened.

"No!" Jim ran to Mycroft and twisted to hold his hand over Mycroft's, to keep Mycroft's thumb in place. "No, you can't!"

"There," Mycroft murmured. "It will be better; you'll see." He looked up at Sherlock with an expression last seen decades ago. "Sherlock? Please run _away_ this time."

Sherlock felt the pressure of the command, and yet he could not move.

Then John's hand was on his wrist, tugging him, and he was following John and Sally to the door. He stopped to pick up the revolver; his legs then overcame his traitorous brain and carried him faster, now chivvying the other two along, now grabbing Sally's good arm when she stumbled on a step, keeping her upright.

They ran outside, ran down the street, John falling back behind them. A bright light flashed, and John was shoving both of them down to the pavement, propelled by a stronger force that rolled over them, drowned by a wave of heat and sound.

Sherlock dragged himself out from under John and turned to see the flames, the shattered windows and broken wall. ( _Shape of explosion suggests main charge placed immediately below the ballroom/no more hypnosis sessions/sprinkler system is still functional; fire might be contained until the police arrive/flame colours indicate lead paint/I no longer have a genetically close relative._ )

People poured out of the surrounding blocks of flats, gawking or running back to evacuate others. Sally was shouting into her radio, calling for Lestrade's team and the fire brigade.

Sherlock became aware of John standing beside him ( _not killed by Jim/not killed by Mycroft/not killed by **me**_ ). "Are you all right?" John asked.

"Of course." Visual and aural confirmation of John's continued existence was insufficient. He stepped behind John and gripped John's shoulders ( _lightly on the left; don't make the bruising worse_ ).

"Er, are you sure you're all right?"

"John, don't ask stupid questions." The incoming data was irritating but inadequate. Sherlock reached around John's right side and pulled him closer. There. Too much tactile input, deafening and blinding contact, but he could bear it for a short time when it meant that he could feel John's breathing.

"Sherlock...." John's tone was gentle.

"Please. I'll let go in a minute."

John stood, and let Sherlock hold on, and said nothing about the salts-in-solution that dripped onto his shoulder, and did not ask Sherlock whether said duct secretions were for Mycroft or for Jim.


	23. 18 October

"He wouldn't come?" Lestrade asked.

John looked about the crime scene, a small sitting room in a spacious flat. "No, he didn't want to." At least, it seemed reasonable to interpret Sherlock's refusal to stir from the couch—or, for that matter, even open his eyes—as a "no".

The mirror above the desk bothered him. Why?

"Pity; this one's right up his street. Locked room, no murder weapon, no sign of anyone in the rest of the flat." Lestrade looked at the slumped-over body in the armchair (woman, late 20s, by all signs peacefully reading a book and listening to her MP3 player before someone had slit her throat) and shrugged. "Might be just as well, though. I don't think Donovan wants to see him any time soon."

John had to agree, since he'd seen Sally several times over the past month but never at 221B. "Anyway, I can at least tell him about it. Won't promise anything, though." If Sherlock were here, he'd probably already have the crime solved; Holmes, John suspected, would have done the same. As for himself, well, he had done what he could, which consisted of being bothered by the mirror, feeling like something else was off about the room, and agreeing with Anderson that the woman hadn't expected the attack and hadn't had a chance to struggle before she died. Not anything Sherlock would be impressed by.

When John returned to Baker Street, Sherlock was still on the couch, in the same position he'd been when John had left. "Tea?" John asked for form's sake. No response.

It had been like this ever since the Incident. After the authorities had arrived—the police, the fire brigade, and the anonymous black cars; after an inaudible argument between Lestrade and Anthea followed by Lestrade's telling him and Sherlock that this crime was apparently outside the Met's jurisdiction; after a short debriefing to Anthea, her expression calm and her eyes red-rimmed; after watching two sheet-covered stretchers be carried out of the wreckage; they had returned home, where Sherlock had stayed up the rest of the night ripping apart the filters on the kitchen sink supply lines. And ever since, Sherlock had been silent, spending most of his time on the couch or shut in his bedroom. Several boxes of Mycroft's possessions had been delivered to the flat, but they still sat unopened in a corner of the living room, a violin case perched on top; Sherlock ignored them all.

John didn't need his psychiatrist to explain the cause, though on occasion he had been tempted to call Dr. Thompson and tell her that his mad flatmate might actually _be_ going mad from shock and grief. But as long as sandwiches and leftover takeaway were disappearing from the fridge regularly, and the full cups of tea John left by the couch were only half-full or empty when he returned from errands, he was not going to hover; he would act like this was an ordinary sulk, albeit a month-long one.

As he made his own tea and a sandwich, he said, "You'd have liked this murder. Locked room, no sign of forced entry, someone slit her throat while she was reading. Poor thing, never going to find out how the story ends, at least not in this life. And no footprints, and no fingerprints...."

That was what bothered him about the mirror. From the dead woman's chair, she wouldn't have been able to see the window. The far too clean window.

"Oh. Of course. That'd work." He took out his phone and texted Lestrade. *check outside window—any blood? if so, and if building windows were cleaned today, bring window cleaner in for questioning.*

He put away his phone and looked up to meet Sherlock's gaze. "Want tea after all?" John asked.

Sherlock actually went so far as to shake his head before closing his eyes again. John shrugged and settled in his chair with his snack; the kitchen table was still clean, but he couldn't bring himself to actually eat there. He picked up the latest book he'd borrowed from Sally, a biography of Colonel Moran written by his friend Ronald Adair, and started reading.

Twenty minutes later, he received Lestrade's return text. *Whose idea—yours or Sherlock's?*

*mine.*

*He's rubbing off on you. Window cleaner confessed. Well done. Donovan says to tell her how you figured it out.*

Well. He'd actually done it. He'd solved a case, without Sherlock's help. 

John couldn't help smiling as he wrote back. *sherlock would've put it together sooner, but thanks. tell her next pub night.*

"Is this how it's going to be, then?"

Sherlock's voice was rough, but not the timbre that spoke of dehydration. John looked over at him, now sitting up, and asked, "What do you mean?"

"Are you taking my place now? The less brilliant but less unmanageable substitute? Lestrade calls for Sherlock Holmes and gets him?"

There were allowances to make for grief, but there were also limits. "Can I just remind you that Lestrade asked for _you_? And that you didn't want to go, so I did?"

"You _solved a crime_."

"It's quite satisfying. I can see why you like doing it." Surprised satisfaction in the front of his mind; utter delight in the back.

"So I'm now unnecessary. Fine." Sherlock threw himself back down on the couch.

John exhaled and reminded himself that no, he did not actually owe Sherlock one bullet. "Not yet, but if you don't remind Lestrade why he's put up with you all these years, he might decide he can tolerate the inferior substitute." He went to the couch and leaned over Sherlock. "Which I am. I'm not your cousin; I was once, but I'm not him anymore."

"I know," Sherlock said sharply, not looking at him. "You're _ordinary_. The only reason you can stand it is because you don't remember."

He recalled the regression, being inside Holmes' head, thoughts racing like trains through Waterloo station at rush hour. "Actually...."

"The regression doesn't count. You spent, what, thirty seconds in his mind? You don't know what it's like to be a genius."

Oh, come _on_. "And you spent, what, zero seconds in Watson's mind? So you have no idea what it's like to be average." _As if Watson was ever average_ , the back of his mind grumbled; he ignored it. "No, I can't look at a crime scene and immediately see all the things you see. No, I can't tell you whether a random passerby just had a fight with their boss or bought a gift to surprise their lover or plans to rob their former best friend. Guess what? Lestrade and his team don't give a toss, as long as the crimes get solved. You're better at it than I am. They'd rather have you. But if it's between me and nothing? They'll take me."

Sherlock rolled to his feet. "Stop _lecturing_ , for God's sake! You're as bad as...." He stomped to his room and rummaged in the wardrobe, emerging in shirt and trousers and shoes for the first time in weeks. "I'll be back when I get back. Don't wait up."

The downstairs door slammed behind him.

"Fine," John said to the empty room. "Come home when you're ready to act like an adult. Or when England wins the World Cup again, whichever comes first."

At least Sherlock was outside the flat for the first time in weeks. And he did have a point that a short time inside Holmes' mind wasn't the equivalent of knowing what it was really like to be Holmes; for that John would have to....

Now, _there_ was an idea.

He opened his laptop and searched for instructions on the voice memo function.

* * *

Sherlock walked until he was tired ( _did not take much time or distance; too sedentary over the past weeks_ ), and then a little further, trying to settle his mind with motion.

He felt unbalanced; he had felt that way for weeks. As if his scaffolding had been removed before his structure was ready to hold up under its own weight; as if his seat belt had vanished and sent him hurtling through a windscreen. As if Mycroft had been his counterweight, and now....

It was ridiculous. He could not remember his father's death, but it certainly had not been like this when his mother had died. He'd regretted the absence of her advice and her calm listening, but she had always told him that her job was to make herself obsolete, and by the time the cancer was diagnosed, Sherlock was already living on his own and no longer _needed_ her. He certainly did not need Mycroft either, so why this irrational mental state?

_Because Mycroft went in that building with a plan he knew could kill him, out of some romantic notion of atonement for a past life. Stupid fat bastard._

He hailed a cab and collapsed into the seat, only belatedly realizing that he'd requested it take him to New Scotland Yard. Well, he did not need to go home yet and tolerate John at his most Johnish. And perhaps there would be something at the Yard to distract him.

Once there, he breezed into the building via his usual route—really, their lax security was not _his_ problem—and paused in the corridor outside Lestrade's team's office.

What was he waiting for? He was _not_ afraid of the police.

He opened the door, strode in, and immediately felt the difference.

The constables, the administrative staff, none of them looked at him as if he were the freak; they looked at him as if he were a rabid dog that had somehow evaded quarantine. Sherlock glared about impartially and ignored Constable Guha surreptitiously making a phone call.

Neither Lestrade nor Sally were there, but the folder from today's case was on Lestrade's desk. Sherlock spread out the notes and photographs. Yes, John was right, and he himself would've solved this in two minutes. Lestrade would've needed two weeks.

John had managed it in two hours.

"What the hell are you doing in here?"

Sherlock looked up at Sally, standing just outside the door. "Reviewing John's work."

Lestrade entered the office. "Put that away, Sherlock; the case is already solved."

"And without you," Sally added sharply. "Or are you going to tell us that the criminal was really a trained parrot from the greengrocer's down the street and that John was wrong?"

Sherlock closed the folder. "Hardly. It's obvious from the photos. John saw the mirror; he saw the window; he realized someone at the window wouldn't be visible from the chair, whereas someone coming in the door would have caught the victim's attention. The victim was wearing a sweater; she had the window open. Headphones; she didn't hear the person outside. The window was clean, when it should've been blood-spattered; it was open at the time of death; the killer reached in the window. Who would be outside the window and not noticed by passers-by? A window cleaner. Obvious. Even you should have been able to see it, Sally, because you're not entirely stupid; sometimes you're even vaguely competent. You showing up that night when you did, keeping Jim from escaping, that was...helpful. I apologise for shooting you. Tell your mother to sod off and bother your brothers if she wants more grandchildren; you'd be wasted anywhere outside the Met." Christ, why was he spewing words? "Good-bye. I'm sure John will be happy to help again."

"Sherlock?" Lestrade had that look he'd had the day he'd given Sherlock the ultimatum—cocaine or cases, but not both.

"Not using. And busy." He pushed past Sally, ignoring her murmur of "did he just _apologise_ for something?", ignoring the strange looks from the constables. He strode out of the offices, not looking back, and headed down the corridor towards the lifts.

"Sherlock."

Damn! He turned to look at Anderson. "What?"

Anderson jerked his chin towards an interview room. "I need to talk to you for a minute."

"I'm busy."

"Now, in private, or later, with an audience. Preference?"

"Do you have _nothing_ better to occupy that tiny brain of yours? Fine." Sherlock opened the door and flung himself into a chair.

Anderson closed the door behind them and leaned against the wall, arms folded. "Just so I'm clear on this," he said. "You've spent the past few months on a mind-controlling drug."

"I am no longer being dosed, but yes."

"You were ordered to kill Sally."

"I was ordered to shoot her."

"But any idiot would have known that meant to kill her, which means you certainly did. And instead, you took the bloke's words literally. Just a graze; stitches and probable slight scarring, minimal damage to muscle, no damage to bone."

"Of course."

Sherlock waited for more interrogation, but Anderson only nodded. "Right, then. You planning to show up at crime scenes ever again?"

"I'm sure you can manage quite well on your own. After all, you won't have to worry about the scene being contaminated."

Anderson shrugged. "True, John's careful about that. See you whenever, then."

Sherlock stared at the door for some minutes after Anderson left.

There was too much to parse. He would go home, and lie back down on the couch, and get John to make some more tea.

* * *

The preparations completed, John went upstairs and set up his room.

Candle in holder on the dresser, set in the middle of a large frying pan full of sand—and why Sherlock had been keeping a bag of sand under the bathroom sink in the first place, John was not going to ask. Chair facing the candle. Laptop on the bedside table. Hands utterly steady; not a sign of tremor. All ready.

John lit the candle, sat, and started playing the recording of his own voice.

_"Look at the candle and breathe deeply. Yeah, I know I sound like an idiot. Forget that. Just breathe. And again. And again, and let yourself fall into the trance."_

He did sound like an idiot, and yet... He inhaled, and exhaled, and let his eyes fall closed.

In the distance, he heard that voice again. *"Now that you're in the trance, when I say go, jump back to the beginning of your life as Holmes. You're going into Holmes' mind, and you'll see the whole thing—not in real time; you're going to fast-forward so it only takes an hour or so. Afterwards, you'll have it in your memory for whenever you want or need it. Okay? Okay. Go."

The fall, the landing. A moment of dark warmth, a burst of cold dim light, and he was hurtling through a life.

Childhood in a genteel house in the country. Hours in wonderful solitude, watching the insects, the animals, the people. All flashed by—parents, tutors, holidays, schooling, a handful of friends. His future self marvelled at the differences, the confined life inside the house and the liberty to roam outside, the items that were luxuries to his past self and privations to his future, the familiar and yet alien world he had lived in; soon, however, his future self faded out of his awareness, leaving only this world of coal and gaslight, horses and telegraphs; a world slower-paced than his racing mind, but with new knowledge emerging faster than even his mind could absorb. He focused on those things that fascinated him—his chemical researches, his musical studies, his observations of the varied traits of the people around him and the inferences he could draw from them—and set the rest aside.

By the time he left Cambridge, he was alone in the world except for his brother Mycroft, a man who appreciated solitude even more than he himself did. But he had also discovered that the habits of observation he shared with Mycroft were a source of wonder to his schoolmates and fellow undergraduates, and after a strange and curious visit to a college friend's home, he began to believe that these abilities might be turned into a profession.

Then there was London, London in its dirt and its beauty, its brown fogs and yellowish lamplight, its horrors and its sublime joys. He moved from lodging to lodging, reading and studying constantly, performing his chemical experiments when he had the funds to do so, refining his skills of observation upon London's population, studying the histories of crimes and criminals. In London he confirmed that he disliked most individuals but nonetheless loved mankind; that noble behaviour hardly correlated with one's title or class; that the darkest aspects of the soul of man could be found anywhere, sometimes even alongside the highest aspirations. And his purpose formed, that he would use his knowledge, his abilities, his mind for untangling the strange puzzles created by human evil or error.

Those years were challenging, his clients and fees barely providing enough for his mere survival, but slowly he gained a reputation as one who could often find answers when all other avenues had failed. Then there came that January day in 1881 with its twin joys—he successfully created a reagent to detect blood, and just as the pleasure from that triumph surged through his mind, he looked up to see Stamford and a stranger.

He marvelled, in the following months and years, over how this man, Dr. John Watson, could so quickly become an essential fixture in his life. Watson was utterly transparent, and yet an enigma; ordinary in mind and understanding, and yet unique, incomprehensible. Over time, he realized that just as he himself used a misanthropic façade to shield his compassion for mankind, so also did Watson wield a benevolent and bland aspect to conceal a dissatisfaction with the ills of the world, a combined fascination with and horror of evil, a strong sense of justice. They shared a delight in the bizarre and esoteric, a distaste for tedium, and above all, a love of the puzzle, the pursuit of an answer. The growth of friendship and respect, under those circumstances, was hardly astonishing.

The other emotions, however—those took him by surprise. He had known, of course, that his lusts were for the male form rather than the female, but he had assumed this to be merely physical desire, easily ignored and utterly divorced from any attachment of the heart. He learned otherwise the day Watson announced his engagement.

Nonetheless, he still had the work, now sufficiently lucrative that he could afford the Baker Street rooms without a fellow-lodger. He still had the long-standing puzzle of the mysterious master-criminal, whose name he now suspected he had found. And after an exhausting case with a solution only partially satisfying, he confirmed that he still had Watson's friendship and attachment.

A little over a year later, he tried that friendship too far and discovered what it truly was to live without Watson.

He subsumed remorse and regret in his hunt for evidence that would convict Professor Moriarty in a court of law. While solving cases for clients ranging in station from a neighbour's charwoman to the government of France, he accumulated data, set his snares, and dodged Moriarty's own people as best he could. At last, at long last, a tiny error of Moriarty's gave him the clue he needed. Hounded and threatened, he nonetheless arranged the trap, then risked bringing his brother to Moriarty's attention in order to arrange his escape from London. And in what he intended as a gesture of farewell and apology, he visited Watson one last time, and he was surprised by Watson yet again.

Two men, not one, fled London the next day. Two men travelled to Strasbourg, waited for news from Scotland Yard, learned of Moriarty's escape, and became fugitives. Two men, on the 4th of May, looked over the edge of a cliff into the Reichenbach Falls and were returning to the main path when a messenger arrived.

He knew, of course, that the message was false, that there was no dying Englishwoman who needed an English doctor; it was Moriarty's plot to separate them. But he had given thought to the matter over the days of their flight, and so he cheerfully encouraged Watson to leave with the lad, so that whatever happened in the coming hour, Watson would be safe. And he waited at the falls until Moriarty appeared.

The fight. Wrestling a man who had lost all and no longer cared about his fate.

The attempt to apply a Japanese wrestling move, one that would have been successful if the ground immediately under his foot had been less slick.

The slip of his foot, the infinite moment of knowing his balance, his life, was lost, anger and disappointment and yet satisfaction, and then one last sight of the person he loved most, not safe as he had hoped. "John!" he shouted as he fell, a last appeal to a dubious providence filling his mind.

There was no time for more.

John opened his eyes to see Sherlock crouching by him.

He blinked and stretched—ouch, he must have been sitting for ages. "How long have you been here?" he asked.

"Since 4:30," Sherlock replied; the look of relief that had flashed across his face was now concealed.

Since shortly after John had started, then. He glanced at his watch. "Christ." Well, that regression hadn't gone _quite_ as fast as he'd hoped, though one lifetime in seven hours was still not bad. He managed to stand up. "Have you eaten?" At Sherlock's sniff, John shook his head. "Of course you wouldn't have. Sandwich? Chinese? I'm starved."

"Did it even occur to you that you might not be able to get out of the trance?"

It had crossed John's mind, but he had judged that it was unlikely. And besides.... "I figured I'd snap out of it at Holmes' death, and if not, you'd come home at some point and wake me before I turned into a desiccated corpse. Now, _that_ would be a locked-room mystery."

He started towards the door, but Sherlock remained by the chair. John sighed and sat down on the floor by him. "I'm fine. See? I need food, a cup of tea, and the loo, not necessarily in that order, but I'm fine. And I was right. Now that I know what it was like to live in your cousin's head? It still doesn't bother me that I'm who I am now." He tapped his own temple. "I'm not as smart, but it's comfortable in here. Besides, being a genius didn't save me—it took my supposedly ordinary friend to defeat Professor Moriarty."

Sherlock frowned, but said only, "So, what _was_ my cousin's last thought?"

It was clear in the back of John's mind, stored alongside memories of cases and criminals, experiments and ephemera. He translated it into words. "His next-to-last thought was disappointment that he'd come so close and lost. But he was content too; he'd at least taken down the rest of the gang, and he thought it was better to die failing to defeat Moriarty than to live never having attempted the challenge." A sentiment that John completely understood. _Perhaps I haven't changed as much between lives as I'd thought._

"And his last?"

John couldn't repress a small smile. "'Please, God, let John live.' Sorry. I'll try for something more interesting next time."

Sherlock snorted, and they sat in silence for a few minutes before Sherlock said, "John? What if I hadn't come home and you hadn't come out of the trance? What if you'd died in here?"

"It'd be less painful than the last round." And far less painful than almost dying in Afghanistan. John pushed that thought aside and answered the real question. "We were friends in a past life. We're friends in this life. We're damn well going to be friends in a future life too. Now let's go eat."

They ended up with takeaway from the Chinese restaurant; Sherlock said nothing as they ate, and John finally asked, "Do you want to try a regression yourself? See if you can finally get into Watson's head?"

Sherlock looked away. "Not yet. I don't....no."

Hardly unexpected. "Might be just as well. Have I mentioned that being in your cousin's mind has given me an extensive and useless knowledge of phrenology?"

A pause, and then Sherlock chuckled, and then they were both laughing.

 _One step at a time,_ John thought. _We'll move forward yet._


	24. 18 December - 4 May

Holiday parties were tedious at best, and even though half the guests in Sarah Sawyer's flat were either police officers or medical professionals, the conversations were still inane. Sherlock extracted himself from the latest boring group ( _accountant, parent with dementia, boyfriend cheating on her; constable, but with the City of London police rather than the Met, breeds gerbils; office manager, one of the women the accountant's boyfriend is cheating with_ ) and found John, temporarily not surrounded by the co-host whose name Sherlock hadn't bothered to catch ( _accountant, fluent in Portuguese and Russian, recently divorced, considering John for a rebound fling_ ). "John, why are we here?"

John's voice was steady in spite of the fifth glass of punch he held. "Because Sally and Sarah both invited us."

"That is an irrelevant reason."

"Also because the couch needs to air out. Forty-seven more minutes, and then we'll go home. Look, if you've already deduced everyone here—"

"Of course."

"—and you don't want to ask Lestrade about his latest cases—"

"Not interested." Not entirely true, and his current antipathy towards going anywhere near the Yard was irrational, but....

"—then, I don't know, try to figure out who you knew in a past life." John smirked. "It's made seeing patients more interesting, that's certain; I keep guessing who's been my client before."

"Ridiculous. Also, that blonde accountant isn't interested in dating you; she only wants an intermittent liaison."

"Works for me." John shooed him away. 

Sherlock retreated to the other side of the living room and suddenly found himself facing Sally ( _argued with her mother earlier today and managed a stalemate; considers it a victory_ ), and unexpectedly, Molly Hooper. "Molly, what are you doing here?"

"I'm a co-host," Molly said calmly.

"Yeah, she joined the Cattery in August," Sally said.

"Given your excessive attachment to your feline, I'm surprised it took you that long," Sherlock said.

Molly and Sally exchanged a look; Sally said, "No, he hasn't read them."

"Oh." Molly looked back at Sherlock and said, "After the case with Clarice Johnston, Sally asked me if I liked _Lord Peter_ , and when I said I'd never seen it, she invited me to join the group. It's a wonderful show. I love Bunter."

Whoever that was. "I'm glad to see you've the sense to limit yourself to fictional men, since your taste in real-world men is execrable."

Molly turned to Sally. "I'll go check on that second batch of biscuits; I smell something burning."

"Good idea," Sally said. As Molly walked quickly away, towards the front door rather than the kitchen, Sally continued, "So, I've been rereading Watson's stories and wondering, was he really a gentleman, or did he just write himself that way? Because I have this hypothesis that in actuality, he was a colossal jerk."

Oh, for God's sake. "She had a long-standing infatuation with me, which she decided to cure by dating a master criminal. Pardon me for not being impressed."

"She dumped the master criminal months ago. I was there to see it. Titanium backbone, that one, and at least _she_ cleans up her own messes. Excuse me; I need to restock the vegetable tray."

The hint was blatant. Sherlock glanced back at John, who was again surrounded by the blonde accountant, considered the likelihood that he'd someday want Molly's help again ( _near-certain_ ), and went out into the corridor.

He found her in the stairwell, not actually crying, simply forcing herself to breathe slowly and evenly. Whatever was he supposed to say? "That was unkind of me."

"What else is new?" She didn't look at him. "I know what you're like; you even treat John that way sometimes, and he actually matters to you."

Something in her resigned tone was familiar, familiar in the way that Watson's gun had felt (still felt, every time he took it from its hidden niche to check it for rust). Why was it... _oh_. 

He remembered that night in Barts— _"I was a Victorian gentlewoman; I was married twice and widowed twice, gratefully both times...."_ And she had seen who she was, and been utterly terrified...not because of who _she_ had been, but because of who _Jim_ had been—somehow, on some level of subconscious awareness, she had known. Oh, _hell_.

Molly was still talking. "I hope you and John have a happy Christmas. Excuse me; I need to get back to the party."

 _For God's sake, how can I have avoided all romantic entanglements in this life and yet still end up in the middle of a marital spat left over from my last life?_ "Molly, wait. Please."

The unfamiliar word held her for a moment before she said, "You don't get to manipulate me."

"Molly. I know who you were in your previous life."

Another pause. "I still don't want...."

"I'm not going to tell you. But you were—you've always had terrible taste in men, and your infatuation with me is hardly an exception. And it doesn't matter, because when you realized it, you did something about it. You finally moved on from me. You dumped Jim. In your last life you married a vicious criminal, and when you learned of his crimes, when there was no evidence that the police would've accepted, you found a way to bring him down without any suspicion falling on yourself. That? That was...that was done well. He underestimated you. _I_ underestimated you. Stop underestimating yourself and go do something...do something _interesting_."

Molly stared at him, but before she could say anything, Sarah's door opened and Lestrade emerged. "Molly? Just got a call about a body that's been brought to Barts, a woman with her face smashed in. They've managed to identify her and think it's tied into one of the Met cases, and they're shorthanded—can you come and help?"

She nodded. "Of course. Let me tell Sarah, and I'll meet you there."

"Thanks." He turned to Sherlock. "Sherlock? What about you?"

Sherlock wondered whether he'd suddenly developed aphasia; the word "no" refused to emerge from his mouth. He heard the door click closed behind Molly; he opened his mouth twice and closed it. On the third try, he managed to say, "It'd be worth your trouble to ask Molly out, but wait until after your divorce is final. She needs the time."

Lestrade's eyebrows lowered. "I'm not getting divorced."

 _You will be once you stop ignoring your wife's latest affair._ Sherlock held that back and said instead, "I wasn't my cousin."

Stupid, stupid, and Lestrade gave that sentence the unimpressed look that it deserved. "Your cousin isn't the one I've worked with for six years." And after a pause, he added, "Will you? Please?"

Sherlock finally forced out the words. "All right."

He was _not_ imagining Lestrade's expression—relief, but personal rather than professional. As if John would do, but he'd actually _missed_ Sherlock; ludicrous.

The flat door opened, and Sally and John came out, John wearing his own jacket and carrying Sherlock's coat. He gave the coat to Sherlock and asked him, "Where's the case?"

"Barts. How did you know I'd take it?"

John shrugged. "Molly said you'd come."

 _I have grossly underestimated her,_ Sherlock thought.

The next hours were busy; Sherlock examined the body as Molly searched through records and Lestrade, Sally, and John looked on. Had Sherlock seen this body without the events of the past months, he'd have believed it to be what it appeared, a violently murdered woman and a clumsy attempt to conceal her identity—the hands and feet were intact, for God's sake, what kind of idiot hadn't heard of fingerprints? But after the posed bodies.... 

He folded up his magnifier and put it away. "Seems straightforward enough. Let me see her medical records." 

The identifying medical data and dental records—oh, interesting name—yes, their style was that little bit off; expert falsification, but unmistakably falsified, and Sherlock was nearly certain he recognized the work of a forger he had helped catch four years ago, one who had disappeared into a government agency rather than prison.

Sherlock set the folders down. "Give it up, Lestrade. You won't catch this one."

"Why not?"

"I'm sure you'll find out soon. Write it off as the typical story—she was in a shady occupation; she blackmailed one of her clients, or perhaps one too many of her clients; her client list has vanished, so you have no suspect. Come on, John."

"I'll give you two a ride," Sally said.

"Unnecessa—"

"It's freezing, and there's been snow. You're getting a ride."

Not worth arguing. "Fine." 

"So," John said as they walked down the corridor, "is it just me, or is there something off about the medical records?"

"Falsified," Sherlock replied.

Sally nodded. "That explains why the body seemed off too." The bell on the lift rang. "And one guess who's going to step out of there.

Too obvious to merit a reply; Sherlock only snorted.

John looked from Sherlock to Sally. "Wait, what?"

As the lift doors opened to reveal Anthea, Sally folded her arms and said, "Good evening, Ms. Henson. The Detective Inspector's still in with the body."

John's eyebrows rose, then lowered. "Oh. Of course." He half-grinned at Sally. "You're still better at this than I am."

Anthea simply nodded to them before refocusing on her Blackberry.

Sherlock followed her a few steps down the corridor. "Anthea."

With the clear air of humouring him out of respect for Mycroft's memory, she turned and said, "The woman genuinely died of an accidental head injury; her body was found too late for her to donate organs, but it's proven useful nonetheless."

Sherlock exhaled. "I will verify this. You know I will. And if I find you have been lying and that this woman was murdered for your purposes—"

"You could do very little on your own," Anthea said calmly.

"What makes you think I would work on my own?" Sherlock nodded towards the lift. "I'd tell them. With John's iron conscience and Sally's legal rectitude added to my brain, you will wish you'd volunteered to be the body before we finish with you and your minions. Are we understood?"

Anthea smiled, as if she both took the threat seriously and was pleased by it. "Completely."

Sherlock nodded and went back to the lift, where John was holding the door for him. As the door closed, John looked at him and said quietly, "Staunch moral core."

"Hardly. I am simply not about to let her get away with murder on my territory."

John only smiled. Sally said, "Substitute body for someone who Ms. Henson's division wants to appear dead, I assume?"

Sherlock replied, "Of course. The records were for a woman of thirty-one, and that woman cannot have been younger than forty." As John's earlier words sank in, he was struck by a horrifying thought. "Sally. That night, at Jim Moriarty's, what did my brother say to you?"

She shrugged. "Just that he was very glad he'd got to meet me in time. Why?"

"Nothing." Sherlock remembered Mycroft's expression—Mycroft had been _thrilled_ , but he'd met Sally before, so he must have just realized who she'd been in a past life. And who could Sally have been, to delight Mycroft so much? Not a friend or relation of Professor Moriarty's, no; someone who Mycroft in _this_ life had been intrigued by, had wondered about, had carefully filed every paper of....

No. Utterly impossible. He was deleting that thought immediately.

He was silent on the ride home, ignoring John and Sally's conversation.

* * *

On the thirty-first of March, John returned home from doing the morning shopping to find Anthea sitting across from Sherlock, she smiling and Sherlock frowning. At least Sherlock was not silent on the couch as he'd been all day yesterday. "Hi, Anthea," John said as he went into the kitchen and put things away.

The fridge was still disturbingly clean, with only one dubious container on a low shelf; John hadn't thought he'd _miss_ random organs and limbs, or that the bag in the freezer containing remnants from last week's experiment on a ferret's corpse would be comforting (even if John had afterwards had to ban liquid nitrogen from the flat). And while Sherlock had started coming on cases again (not always, but more and more often), he still seemed subdued, often forgetting to twit Anderson about his humming—which, granted, disturbed Anderson even more than the twitting would've, but John could tell that Sherlock was genuinely too preoccupied to bother.

Hell, there had been those four dates John'd had with Cathy the accountant, all completely uninterrupted by Sherlock. John had finally ended it, admitting to her that he really was too worried about Sherlock to be much of a boyfriend; Cathy had shrugged it off, saying that both Sarah and Sally had warned her.

John regularly reminded himself that it had barely been six months since the Incident, that he couldn't expect Sherlock to be back to normal already. It was strange, though, to realize that the supposed high-functioning sociopath, who had not been visibly affected by the death of someone from his homeless network, could receive an emotional blow with lasting effects.

He returned to the living room and said to Anthea, "I don't suppose Sherlock offered you anything to drink?"

"I was only waiting for you. Your presence has been requested."

"By who?"

She smiled. "The car's outside."

John looked at Sherlock, who shrugged and said, "Take that bag on the table with you. If you don't go, she'll only continue trying to convince me to work for her. And besides, you want to go."

Which was all true, so John followed Anthea down the stairs.

The car's rear windows were blacked out, and a curtain blocked the view to the front. "I apologize for any carsickness this might produce," Anthea said. "One of our safehouse residents has asked to see you before being moved; the location is confidential, though I can tell you that we'll be driving for some hours."

He immediately knew who Anthea was taking him to see, and a glance in the bag confirmed it. "Of course."

It was at least two hours later when the car stopped. John stepped out to see a small grey house on a street of similar small grey houses, a couple of flower boxes adding hints of purple and yellow.

The front door was opened by a beautiful woman in well-tailored clothes that left no doubt of her figure and did nothing to conceal a slight bulge in her abdomen. After she closed the door behind them, she said, "Good morning, Ms. Henson. And you must be Dr. Watson; I'd introduce myself, but then Ms. Henson would have to kill me. Anne is in the back room."

Piano music floated through the house; John had heard Sherlock play the same piece on violin, many months ago. The part of his memory he now called Holmes whispered _Mendelssohn's "Consolation"_. He followed the music to the room where Mrs. Moriarty played the piano, a dull sitting room clearly in the process of being packed up for removal, and sat in one of the not-very-comfortable chairs to listen.

When she finished, she said, "Good morning, Dr. Watson. It's a pleasure to see you again."

"Likewise." He glanced back at the door; Anthea and the other woman were talking in the front room. "Not a caretaker, I hope?" _With those calluses and musculature? Only for very particular needs,_ the Holmes-mind whispered.

"Cellmate would be more accurate." A long pause. "She had worked with James."

"I'm sorry. About...I'm sorry for your loss."

Mrs. Moriarty nodded. "It was always a possibility, given his career choice." The glance she gave to the two photographs on the table, one of toddler Jim with the upturned bowl on his head and the other of Jim, herself, and a man who must have been her husband, gave the lie to her even tones. She continued, "When she learned that she'd been slated for assassination, she turned Queen's Evidence. She ultimately had dealings with Ms. Henson's agency, and we met through them. We were both in need of a safe house, we found each other's tempers congenial, and I liked her name. So we came to an arrangement." She shook her head. "I had thought I knew the extent of James' activities, but she and Ms. Henson opened my eyes. My uncle Joseph would have been proud of him. Has your friend recovered from James' experimental drug?"

"I think so." Sherlock had spent an evening at Barts in January and had come home triumphantly brandishing the spectrometer results; John had been a little wistful but mostly relieved—no more guarding his tongue against accidental orders.

"Good. Ms. Henson said that they now have a fast-acting treatment, but I doubt that the drug would have been practical in wider application anyway. It only worked as well as it did on your friend because he liked James very much, didn't he?"

"I'm not sure 'liked' is the right word," John admitted. "I'm not entirely sure he likes _me_."

"Nevertheless, from what I hear of the tests Ms. Henson's people have run, the drug requires a bond between subject and controller to be truly effective, and clearly your friend and James had such a bond." Mrs. Moriarty looked away. "Thinking about it now, I believe James was delighted that it worked. He was fascinated by your friend's career, and he always wanted to match wits with him." She shook her head and straightened. "And you? Are you well?"

"Very."

She studied his face, then smiled. "Good. It is unlikely that I'll see you again for some time, if at all, so I am glad that you have settled into yourself."

"Anthea said you were being moved; are you still in danger from Jim's people?"

"More from the Moriarty relatives who were caught in the backwash. I am sorry about most of them."

"Then if I'm not seeing you for a while, I should give these back to you." John held out the bag.

Mrs. Moriarty took out Colonel Moran's journals, but handed the photograph of Holmes and Watson back to John. "Keep that. And I have something else for you." She rose and went to a large trunk; when she lifted the lid, the smell of libraries filled the room.

John moved to kneel by the trunk, filled with handwritten manuscripts carefully tied into bundles and ancient leather-bound notebooks. He gently opened one notebook; by now, he knew this handwriting like he knew Sherlock's or Sally's. "You can't seriously be giving me Dr. Watson's notes on Holmes' cases."

"If you decide you don't want them, then I would prefer that you return them to me or donate them to a public archive rather than binning them. But yes, I want you and your friend to have them. You are welcome to publish or adapt these as you see fit; I look forward to seeing what you do with them." 

He imagined writing up Holmes' cases better than Watson had, and he grinned. "I'll send word through Anthea, if she doesn't tell you on her own first."

Anthea's driver came in with a hand truck and removed the trunk; John and Mrs. Moriarty followed him into the front room, where Anthea and the other woman had finished their conversation. The unfamiliar woman smiled at John, making him feel every month of celibacy in spite of the Holmes-mind saying she was not actually interested, and held out her hand. "Good-bye, Dr. Watson. Perhaps one day I'll be able to pay you and Mr. Holmes a visit; I've heard so much about him."

"Good-bye." He glanced at her waist. "And congratulations."

She smirked. "Just business. I enjoy imagining Jim spinning in his grave at the mere idea."

John did not let his jaw drop as he looked at Mrs. Moriarty, who simply said, "I'll see you to the car."

Outside, John said quietly, "Really?"

Mrs. Moriarty looked serene. "I would hardly dispose of the sample when this was the reason he left one."

He looked back at the door. _What if it's Jim reincarnated? What if it's **Mycroft**?_ "Are you sure you're not creating a monster?"

"No, Dr. Watson, we are creating a baby. She will be reared by a loving family; what she does with her life is ultimately out of our hands. Please tell Mrs. Hudson that I will communicate as soon as Ms. Henson has arranged a conduit. And tell your friend that his second error was that James is named after his father." She held out her hand.

He shook it, mind reeling. "But your husband's name...sorry, never mind. I'll pass it along. And if we don't meet again in this life, shall we plan for next life?"

Mrs. Moriarty smiled. "I'll do my best."

It was early evening by the time Anthea dropped John and the trunk off at Baker Street. John duly gave the messages, receiving thanks from Mrs. Hudson and a grumble of "Of course, that explains his jawline; I should have realized" from Sherlock.

When John opened the trunk, though, Sherlock took one look at the contents and stepped back. "No."

"You don't want to see them?" John picked up a notebook. "I really want to see how Watson's notes compare with Holmes' memories."

"John. I was an idiot then."

"Well, don't worry about it; as you've said on multiple occasions, most people are idiots."

Sherlock snorted and returned to the couch; throwing himself down, he said, "I can't imagine what it's like for you."

"What do you mean?"

"To go from what you were to...yes, fine, bit not good. But you _know_ what you were; how do you stand it?"

"Having a dull little mind?" John shrugged. Yes, sometimes he did feel wistful about Holmes' brain, just as he felt wistful about having hands steady enough to sew up an artery before the patient bled out on the table. But.... "It's like selling a Ferrari to buy a Ford Focus. Yeah, I can't drive it as fast, but it gets me where I need to go, and for my everyday life, it's actually better. I'm content."

Any reply Sherlock might have made was interrupted by a knock downstairs; a minute later, Sally came in holding a manila envelope. "Got you a birthday present," she said.

Sherlock glared at her. "Too early or too late, depending on which of us you mean."

She tossed him the envelope. "It's for Watson's birthday, so you might as well open it."

John followed Sherlock to the desk and looked over his arm as he opened the envelope. But the contents were unexpected: Plane tickets to Zurich. Train tickets to Meiringen. A printout of a hotel reservation, two beds.

They both looked at Sally, who smirked. "The team took up a collection."

"But..." John began.

"Don't trot out work as an excuse; Sarah and the rest of the Cattery went in on it too. Besides, you have a month to get ready."

Sherlock looked down at the envelope; when he spoke, his voice was odd. "I have never been to Reichenbach."

"It's worth seeing," Sally replied. "I went last September while I was on leave." She noticed the trunk. "More family papers?"

She spent the next three hours sitting by the trunk, utterly rapt, reading notebook after notebook, deaf to John's occasional offer of tea and Sherlock's disgusted sniffs. John was just as happy to leave her to it; the prospect of seeing the place where he'd died once was both thrilling and unsettling. Sherlock simply returned to the couch and ignored both of them.

When Sally finally remembered the time, John walked her to her car. Outside the building, he said, "Thanks. I had no idea what you'd planned; I thought you'd received that journal issue early."

"Ha. I'll be lucky if I get it before you leave." She glanced up at the window. "Don't tell him I said this, but I hope he starts acting more like his old self soon. It's disturbing when he's polite to Anderson."

That was an unpleasant thought. "You don't expect this trip to be 'closure' or some such rot, do you? Because I don't think there's any such thing."

Sally shook her head. "Not closure, no. Overture, maybe. See you next week or when the boss calls you two in, whichever comes first."

Sherlock was still on the couch when John went to bed, but early in the morning, John was awakened by violin music—the Mendelssohn, at least, rather than the atonal noodlings. The violin sounded subtly different, though... _oh_.

He went downstairs and settled in his chair to listen. Sherlock lowered the Strad after a few minutes. "It wasn't a nightmare. I'm just not tired."

"I know. You haven't had a nightmare since that night at Jim's."

Sherlock made a noncommittal noise, then held out the violin. "Do you want to try it? After all, it _was_ yours."

John shook his head; he was perfectly content where he was. "My brain remembers how to play it, but my hands don't. Besides, I'd rather listen to you."

* * *

On the fourth of May, Sherlock stared down into the splashing water, miniature jagged clouds rising from the pool below, and remembered what it had felt like to push Professor Moriarty ( _Mycroft_ ) over the edge.

His cousin ( _John_ ) had died here. His own past life, for all practical purposes, had ended here as well.

John was looking around with interest at the exposed rock and the vegetation, seeming unperturbed by history. "This ledge ran closer to the falls back then. Amazing what a century of erosion can do. And it doesn't look like there's as much water flowing as there was before."

"There isn't," Sherlock replied. "Hydroelectric plant upstream."

"Ah, that explains it." He joined Sherlock in gazing into the waters.

After a while, Sherlock asked, "Do you remember what it was like?"

"What, dying? No. I fell, I hit the bottom, and that was it." John exhaled. "Afghanistan was worse."

They fell silent again.

Finally, John said, "We'd best head back to Meiringen. Maybe tomorrow we can try walking all the way to Rosenlaui—it'd be nice to finally _get_ there."

Sherlock pondered the matter during the entire walk back and during dinner. When they were finally back in their hotel room for the evening, he said, "Hypnotise me. I want to try one more time to see what really happened."

John studied his face and shook his head. "Are you certain?"

"Of course."

"It's been seven months; the phrase might not work—"

"You said it would work when I want it to. It'll work. Do it."

John shook his head again and sat down across from Sherlock. "All right. Secant phenol metacarpal, three two one."

Sherlock closed his eyes and fell easily into the trance. It did feel different now that the drugs had passed from his system; he was more aware of his own mind, his own will.

That warm voice, the important voice ( _John's voice_ ), finally spoke. "Okay. You know when; you know where. If it's too much for you, remember that I'm here now, I'm fine now. Go."

He passed through the blur of agony and fell back, landing in his old body, walking briskly down the path away from the Reichenbach Falls, following the path of the messenger boy. His body, but not quite his mind; there was still that barrier, seeming as impermeable as the rocks about the falls.

But the barrier was less solid than it appeared; he felt the first wisps of his past self's doubt, growing stronger with every step away from Holmes; the budding certainty that he was wrong to leave, that he must return. Sherlock gazed through his former eyes as he finally turned to climb the path once more, to return to Holmes. Up, up, aches in his right leg that he ignored as simple tiredness rather than injury.

Up far enough to see the ledge, see Holmes struggling with a stranger, see Holmes slide off-balance and be pushed over the edge, see Holmes' face as he fell.

Holmes' cry of "John!" pierced through his ears, through the barrier between Sherlock and Watson's mind. _My fault/I should have known better/my truest friend is dead/no no no no!_

He ran, the pain in his leg nothing compared to the pain in his very being. He faced Professor Moriarty and spoke to him in words he had not used since his military service. But his rage seemed only to amuse the Professor, who said, "Come, sir, we are both gentlemen; let us speak like such. Have you missed your friend? Perhaps if you hurry, you may yet catch up with him."

But he was victorious in the end, sending the Professor to the same death Holmes had suffered.

Sherlock heard his own voice as if over a distant PA system. "I don't want to leave Watson's mind yet. But I don't want to see what happens next."

The warm voice replied, "Then don't. Go to something earlier. Go to something that made you happy. Or several somethings, if you like."

He fell backwards and landed in the dark room in the Roylott mansion, then raced with Holmes into Dr. Roylott's room to find the dead man and the terrible serpent that had been his doom, saw Holmes throw the snake into the safe and then collapse against the wall, ruefully admitting that he had always had a horror of snakes. And Watson saw what Sherlock might actually have missed, that Holmes had been terrified not for himself, but for Watson.

He jumped forward to that last night before all changed, that last night before he had met Mary Morstan. And now he was not merely an observer; he was in Watson's mind, listening to and telling stories, unaware that this was an ending, utterly content where he was, savouring his glimpses of the working of Holmes' mind.

And then he went to the night Holmes had simulated a fatal illness; he felt his own relief-fired rage at Holmes' insults and deception, and yet before he had returned to his home, he had been able to set aside his anger enough to admire the plan and to, perhaps, admit its necessity. And again, to the night several months later when Holmes arrived in his Paddington home uncertain of his welcome—as if Watson could ever have denied Holmes.

He gathered his nerve and leapt once more, to the prison cell the night after the trial ended. The hopelessness of his situation was only now beginning to sink in, the certainty that this room would be his residence, his world, for decades ( _how little I knew_ ). And yet, when he considered that Holmes' reputation as a great man was safe, he found a counter to despair, a certainty that he had done what was right. No one would ever know, and it did not matter. Holmes would be remembered for his genius, for the crimes he had solved. That was enough.

"And I think this is enough," said the warm voice. Four snaps.

Sherlock opened his eyes and focused on John's concerned face. "My God, _that's_ what it's like to be you."

John exhaled and shook his head. "All right, should I say 'thanks' or 'piss off'?"

"I didn't know. I thought it would be boring." It was like he had seen through the eyes of someone whose retina contained ultraviolet receptors, and now he himself could perceive just the faintest difference in colour, and might see more with practice. And yet.... He had thought he was resisting Watson's mind because it was so unlike his; he had not known that there would be so much in there that was familiar. The respect for science and evidence; the knowledge of what horrors people could commit against each other; the active decision to fight those horrors rather than descend to them himself, as he could so easily have done then and do now. The deep respect for his friend, and even more. Sherlock shook off the sentiment and continued, "But at least now I've _seen_ what happened. Sadly, a past life regression will be insufficient to convince the general population of Watson's innocence, but perhaps we have enough physical evidence."

"Er. About that...." John stood and stretched, then retrieved a large envelope from his suitcase and handed it to Sherlock. "Sally received this just before we left."

Sherlock opened the envelope and pulled out a clearly amateur publication; the trite font on the front cover proclaimed _The Sign of Three: A Special Issue of the Journal of Watsonian Studies_. "What _is_ this?"

"Page five."

He turned to the page. _The Dynamics of a Murder: A Solution for the Three-Body Problem, by S. R. Donovan and J. H. Watson._ A quick summary of what was known from Watson's trial; an analysis of the Reichenbach photograph; the hotel records showing the travels of Professor Moriarty and Colonel Moran; that letter from Joseph Moriarty to Mycroft the Elder, including the Professor's death date; a summary of the last letter of Watson's, found in Lestrade's great-grandfather's diary; notes from Colonel Moran's diary that suggested a plot against Watson; the concluding statement that having evaluated the evidence, the authors were completely convinced of Dr. Watson's innocence. And throughout, notes attributing particular theories and chains of logic to Sherlock Holmes, distant relative of the original Holmes, and expressing deep appreciation for his work and his analyses.

Sherlock looked up, ignoring the odd feeling in his throat and eyes that resembled an allergic reaction. "When did you two write this?"

"Last autumn. We actually got the acceptance letter on your birthday—I wanted to tell you then, but Sally said they always have publication delays and that we'd better wait until we had the issue in hand." John grinned. "The editor told her they'd already received at least a hundred emails about it, and most of them think we're right. They'll be debating it for months, of course, and some people will never be convinced, but...."

Sherlock blinked until he could read the words again. "Tell Sally...tell her it's well written. You two did a good job." 

"Moderately competent even if we are a couple of idiots, right?"

Sherlock exhaled. "You aren't idiots. Not entirely, anyway."

"I've been inside the brain of a genius, remember? I _can_ tell the difference." John shrugged. "But I really don't mind. Besides, you had to be the ordinary sidekick to the genius last time; it's only fair that I'm ordinary and you're brilliant now."

"Don't be obtuse. You're not ordinary. If you were ordinary, you would have moved out long ago. Certainly when I shot you."

"All right, so I'm a bit mad. But I'm still..."

"No, you're not." Sherlock sought for the right words—Watson would have been better able to explain. And in fact, Watson _had_ explained it better. Sherlock stood and grabbed John's hand. "John." He ignored the overwhelming textures (*calluses/smoother skin/bones/fat deposits/hair/muscle) and raised John's hand briefly to his lips. "You are still the best and wisest man I've ever known."

When he dropped John's hand, John looked at him with an odd expression ( _overwhelmed by surprise and affection_ , a Scottish-tinged voice in the back of Sherlock's head suggested, though Sherlock suspected John was simply trying to decide whether it was time to have Sherlock sectioned).

"Someday," John began, then paused. "I know this sounds stupid and sentimental, but I'd like to get a picture of us in the same pose as we were in the 1880s picture."

And then again, maybe the Watson-mind was correct. Sherlock took out his phone and sent a quick text; the answer came a few minutes later.

"Fine," he said. "We have a session scheduled for the ninth. Photographer who I helped out when she thought one of her assistants was running a blackmail business." It had actually been the _other_ assistant, and blackmail had turned out to be the least of the crimes, but that wasn't relevant now. "One photograph of me in the chair and you leaning on the back."

"What?"

For all that John had gained deductive ability since being in Holmes' mind, sometimes he could still be dense. "You said you wanted the same pose," Sherlock pointed out.

"Oh." John smiled. "Yes."

He could not help smiling back. _Sentiment._ Sherlock made himself speak. "So. Now what do we do?"

John shrugged. "Same things we've always done. Solve crimes, do experiments, and let the food get cold. Unless you want to try something else?"

Ridiculous. "Why would I want to? Not yet, anyway."

"Good. Then let's go to Rosenlaui tomorrow, and on Friday let's go home and be the greatest detective and assistant in 120 years."

"In longer."

John threw a sock at him. "You're not that good yet. Maybe in another ten or twenty years. And if not then, maybe next life."

Sherlock threw it back. "Maybe. But let's see what we can do with this life first."

* * *

He dreamed that night of the trial, for the first time in months. But this time, John stood before the jury and declared that Watson was innocent. Sally brought the photograph and pointed out how the footprints of the third party had been covered up. His brother Mycroft, too, testified in favour of Watson's innocence, and stood with a hand on Jim's shoulder as Jim grudgingly explained Moran's role in the deception. And at last, the courtroom echoed with the cry of "Not guilty!"

But when he went to Watson's cell, Watson was already dying; he was Watson, and he was dying. Not quite alone; accompanied by one friend and one enemy, he moaned in pain until the fog finally covered his vision.

A hand reached through the fog. "It's time. Come with me."

He took the hand and was lifted from his body into a strange grey space, crossed by a shining multicoloured river.

Holmes held his hand, grinning. "We're not finished yet," he said, his face shifting to become John's, and then back to Holmes' again. "Look at the river, and observe."

He saw their overlapping and intersecting lives, stretching back across millenia. On every inhabited continent, in hundreds of cultures, they had lived, they had found each other. Parent and child, comrades in arms, servant and master, husband and wife, siblings, friends, teacher and student, partners, back and forth and always, always meeting again. And if he squinted, he could see their traces ahead, continuing far into the future, into more lives, more worlds, as far as time extended.

Sherlock opened his eyes and sat up to see John watching him from the other bed. "You were having a dream again," John said, forehead wrinkled in concern. "Are you all right?"

It was only a dream. And yet....

Sherlock smiled. "I will be."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes and Further Reading/Viewing/Listening
> 
> #### General
> 
> In addtion to Arthur Conan Doyle's original Sherlock Holmes stories (particularly _The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_ and _The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes_ [the version including "The Adventure of the Cardboard Box"]) and BBC _Sherlock_ , the Kenneth Branagh film _Dead Again_ was the main inspiration for this work. You've now been spoiled for a major plot twist, but watch it anyway for fabulous performances by Branagh, Emma Thompson, Derek Jacobi, and others.
> 
> Brad Keefauver's "A Basic Timeline of Terra 221B" (http://www.sherlockpeoria.net/Who_is_Sherlock/SherlockTimeline.html), with his own and others' suggested dates for the canon stories, was hugely helpful for deciding which canon cases (besides the obvious) occurred pre-Reichenbach in this 'verse.
> 
> #### Chapter 2
> 
> Conan Doyle, Arthur. _A Study in Scarlet_.
> 
> Ransome, Arthur. _Swallows and Amazons._
> 
> #### Chapter 3
> 
> Lehrer, Tom. Introduction to "Alma". _That Was the Year that Was._
> 
> #### Chapter 5
> 
>  _Doctor Who_. "The End of Time," part 2. 
> 
> Anon., sung by Emily Smith. "May Colven." _Too Long Away._
> 
> Jim is wearing this xkcd t-shirt: http://store.xkcd.com/xkcd/#SysAdmin.
> 
> #### Chapter 6
> 
> Of course John has seen _Star Wars_ (original trilogy, and this John also believes Han shot first) and read _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_.
> 
> Theis, Jim. "The Eye of Argon." The MST3Ked version is worth tracking down.
> 
> Sherringford and Sacker were early names Conan Doyle considered for Holmes and Watson.
> 
> #### Chapter 7
> 
> If anyone is inspired to make a Breton/klezmer/bluegrass band called Foie Gras, please send me MP3s of your first album.
> 
> Josephine Tey's _Daughter of Time_ is a real book, but the dedication was made up for this story.
> 
> #### Chapter 8
> 
>  _The Good Doctor?_ is an imaginary work, as are all the quotes taken from it. Whoever takes a stab at writing the Kipling poem that includes the line "Be a man as Watson was" will win the internet.
> 
> Duran Duran, "Union of the Snake." _Seven and the Ragged Tiger_.
> 
> Yes, Fred Steele is named after artist Frederick Dorr Steele.
> 
> #### Chapter 9
> 
> The real-world book by Baring-Gould is _Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street_.
> 
> It has long been my headcanon that in the Sherlockverse, Martin Freeman plays Lord Peter Wimsey in a 21st-century retelling of Dorothy Sayers' Peter Wimsey mysteries, with Benedict Cumberbatch as his personal assistant Bunter.
> 
> Sherlockians, while generally agreed that Holmes' birthday is 6 January, aren't as agreed on Watson's birthday; there are arguments both for 31 March and for 7 July. I chose to use both.
> 
> John's gift was inspired by a T-shirt I saw online saying "Support Your Local Medical Examiner -- Die Strangely."
> 
> Corbett and Barker are named for the stars of The Two Ronnies, which aired in Britain from 1971 to 1987.
> 
> #### Chapter 13
> 
> For the record, Sherlock was not hallucinating the deck chairs in that _Tristan und Isolde_ performance.
> 
> #### Chapter 14
> 
> The identities of the names on the boxes are left as an exercise for the reader. (Hint: see books by Caroline Stevermer, Elizabeth Gaskell, and John Le Carre, as well as the cinematic performances of Michael Caine and Roger Moore, not together.) As for the unnamed actor, your guess is as good as mine.
> 
> #### Chapter 15
> 
> Taio Cruz, "Dynamite."
> 
> #### Chapter 16
> 
> Led Zeppelin, "Gallows Pole." (Though the one I was listening to was Great Big Sea's cover.)
> 
> There can never be too many _Princess Bride_ references.
> 
> #### Chapter 17
> 
> Dr. Louis Guillaume was the director of a Swiss penitentiary and extremely influential in 19th-century prison reform; his system was studied by many American and English activists of the time. Sadly, there doesn't seem to be a lot of English-language information on his life, but I wanted to at least mention him in the story.
> 
> John has also seen _2001_.
> 
> #### Chapter 18
> 
> The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin does not, to my knowledge, have a historic photograph of Reichenbach Falls (with or without a crime scene).
> 
> G. K. Chesterton's "The Invisible Man" is a real story and worth a read.
> 
> #### Chapter 20
> 
> The omitted sections of the letter are essentially identical to the corresponding parts of Conan Doyle's "The Final Problem."
> 
> #### Chapter 21
> 
> Yes, technically "The Blind Banker" draws from _The Sign of Four_ , but the parallels are loose enough that I don't see either Sherlock or Jim making that association.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
